NO. VI.—MACBETH.
Macbeth is a great moral and religious lesson. Its application is as wide as Christendom, and I think may be justly regarded as an exposition of Christianity. It is applicable to all men, and is not by any means limited to kings or usurpers. Nearly every one has some strong desire, or passion, or plan. The “golden round” for which men, nowadays, file their minds, put rancors in the vessels of their peace, and give their eternal jewel to the common enemy of man, is not a crown, but it is not wanting. On a large or a small scale, the principle is the same. Whoever undertakes, by immoral, unlawful means, to effect a favorite object—whoever lives without habits of frequently appealing to God—whoever listens for an instant to the delusive promises of passion—is liable to be drawn on, like him, far beyond their intention, and involved at length in sin and ruin. The Scottish usurper—the individual, is dead. But the class, to which he belonged, survives. Macbeths are to be met with every day in the world—men who listen to the promises of the fiends, who build up a hope of safety and impunity upon as hollow a foundation as the charm of not being born of a woman—or of not being destroyed till the advancing against them of a forest. Many a man—many a woman—many a young girl becomes thus entangled from forgetting their Maker and clinging to the “weird sisters” of the world, till shame, vice and despair overwhelm them.
Read aright, this tragedy is a mighty lesson to the young. They are starting in life inexperienced, thoughtless, and ready to believe the brilliant promises of every wandering and dangerous hope. They are ready also to “jump the life to come,” if they can secure impunity in their present career. Let them read Macbeth with care, and get from its wondrous page a terrific glimpse of the world. Let them look on poor, weak, deluded human nature when trusting in itself. Let them see the highest earthly rank, when unblessed by Heaven—the haughtiest, loftiest, steadiest mind, when turned from God to follow, with its own rash steps, the mazes of life. Let them, while they are pure and innocent, remain so. Let them keep the quiet conscience of the gentlewoman, even if, to do so, they are obliged to remain in her lowly position. Let them never, for “the dignity of the body,” poison the quiet of the soul. Let them tread the darkest, weariest paths of common life, rather than file their minds with any delusive and hollow hope of worldly advantage. Put no rancors in the vessel of your peace, whatever be the temptation. Cling to him whose promises alone are fulfilled. Commit no act, great or small, which can prey on your imagination and poison the good which may be in store for you. Put no “damned spot” upon your hand. Once there, it is ineffacable by all the washing of the ocean—by all the perfumes of Arabia; and however great may appear the temptation, keep the eternal jewel, Innocence, from “the common enemy of man.”
I have said, in a former paragraph, that Macbeth had been guilty before, in deeds as well as thoughts. Let any one read the scene between him and the two murderers and he will feel at once the conviction that Macbeth himself has been guilty of those oppressive cruelties which he there lays upon Banquo.
“know
That it was he, in the times past, which held you
So under fortune; which you thought had been
Our innocent self: this I made good to you
In our last conference, past in probation with you;
How you were borne in hand; how crost,” etc.
And again,
“are you so gospell’d
To pray for this good man, and for his issue,
Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave,
And beggared yours forever?”
What dark tale of oppression is connected with these vague disclosures we cannot tell; but the character of Banquo acquits him of having been the tyrant. These men have been, in some way or other, so trampled on that they are both rendered desperate, and Macbeth, who knows it so well, and whom, it seems, they had always considered the cause of their misfortunes, is most likely so in reality.
As to what I have said at the commencement of these papers respecting the want of a just appreciation of the poet on the part of his commentators—take Dr. Johnson, for example, on Macbeth. He begins with a defence of the introduction of supernatural machinery into the tragedy. This proves distrust of Shakspeare, as the transcendent genius he is now annually becoming in the estimation of every one. Hear the learned essayist descanting upon the dramatist as if he knew more of the art than the master. It is like the old Hungarian officer’s celebrated critique on Napoleon’s manœuvres.
“In order,” says Johnson, “to make a true estimate of the abilities and merit of a writer, it is always necessary to examine the genius of his age and the opinions of his cotemporaries. A poet who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment and produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured as transgressing the bounds of probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of tragedies.”
In other words, had Shakspeare written Macbeth in the time of Dr. Johnson, that play would be considered unworthy to be performed, except before an audience of children, and the critic would advise the mistaken young author to adopt a profession in which he might hope for more success, than in literature. I can fancy some wiseacre in a London weekly, with the smartness and knack at severity which daily practice confers, taking to pieces “the tragedy of Macbeth, by a Mr. William Shakspeare, said to be a subordinate at Astley’s”—and serving the ambitious young gentleman up such a dressing for his witches, ghosts and murders, as would be enough to extinguish a better educated and more promising litterateur; showing how impossible it must be for witches to mingle in human affairs, in this enlightened age of hebdomadals, and banishing to the nursery a blunderer unworthy to cater for such sensible critics.
The denunciation, however, would embrace other literary works besides the puerile attempt of Mr. Shakspeare. Manfred, Cain, the Faust, and other trifles of the same description, in which the poet has made the action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment. Virgil or Homer might be equally censured. It is quite true that the witches may not be considered probable characters, but how can any one overlook their fearful and magnificent meaning allegorically?
Johnson goes on, however, in his defence.
“But a survey of the notions that prevailed at the time when this play was written, will prove that Shakspeare was in no danger of such censures, since he only turned the system that was then universally admitted to his advantage, and was far from overburthening the credulity of his audience.”
The doctor then goes on to a learned and interesting dissertation on the gross darkness of ignorance—on the credulity of the common people—on the diabolical opposition supposed to have been offered to the Christians in the crusades—quotes Olympidorus, St. Chrysostom, and a law of King James I. against conjurors, and shows much sagacious wisdom and learning, which have about as much to do with the real living beauty of Macbeth as they have with the Temple of Jerusalem.
“Upon this general infatuation,” continues the doctor, “Shakspeare might be easily allowed to found a play, especially as he has followed, with great exactness, such histories as were then thought to be true: nor can it be doubted that the scenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were both by himself and his audience thought awful and affecting.”
No one can doubt the moral greatness of Dr. Johnson, but it was not of a kind which enabled him to enter fully into the living principle of beauty which inspires the Shakspeare plays.
He speaks of Macbeth with a sort of indifference which betrays his blindness to its highest merits. He praises the propriety of its fiction, and the solemnity, grandeur and variety of its actions. He adds, “but it has no nice discrimination of character. The events are too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, etc. The danger of ambition is well described; and I know not whether it may not be said in defence of some parts which now seem improbable, that, in Shakspeare’s time, it was necessary to warn credulity against vain and illusive predictions.”
And in our own time, what leads every criminal astray, but some “vain and illusive prediction,” not uttered by three weird sisters, by an armed head, or the “apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in his hand,” but by the temptations of the world and the treacherous passions of the human heart? What was it which told Napoleon—
“Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care,
Who chafes, who frets, and where conspirers are?”
Who told Robespierre—
“Be bloody, bold and resolute, laugh to scorn,
The power of man,” etc.?
It was not the spectres, in the witches’ case—nor the express conditions added.
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.”
Or,
“None of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”
But who can doubt that the principle of evil, had held forth, before both their minds, some illusive hope which led them to ruin?
As another instance of the careless errors committed by the commentators, and Johnson among the rest, take the following. The note occurs in Cawthorn’s (successor to Bell) edition, London, 1801, and although without Johnson’s name, is found between two notes of his, (p. 41,) and is, I believe, from his pen.
The passage referred to is in the second act of the Tempest, where the King of Naples, after the shipwreck, is wandering about the island with some of his suite. The reader will remember that the storm raised by Prospero overtakes them as the King Alonso is coming to Naples from Tunis, where he had been to marry his daughter Claribel. Great regret has been expressed that this marriage should have ever been thought of, since it is the cause of their present misfortune. The king himself is sorry and the rest are some of them angry and satirical.
Sebastian says,
“ ’Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our
return.”
The match is thought absurd by most of them, and when, in answer to Antonio’s question, “Who’s the next heir to Naples?” Sebastian replies, “Claribel,” Antonio rejoins the following passage;
“She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells
Ten leagues beyond man’s life; she that from Naples
Can have no note, unless the sun were post,
(The man in the moon’s too slow) till new born urchins
Be rough and razorable,”
On this there is the following note:
“Shakspeare’s great ignorance of geography is not more conspicuous in any instance than in this, where he supposes Tunis and Naples to have been at such an immeasurable distance from each other.”
It does not seem to me that the passage warrants the supposition of such an opinion on the part of Shakspeare. It is obviously a mere hyperbole in jest. It is not credible that such a writer could be so ignorant, and where other evidences of it appear in the course of his works, it is more rational (when they cannot be explained away as in the present instance) to ascribe them to typographical confusion, or the liberties of ignorant copyists, &c.
To the passage complained of, Sebastian himself answers,
“What stuff is this? How say you?
’Tis true, my brother’s daughter’s Queen of Tunis;
So is she heir of Naples; ’twixt which regions
There is some space.”
“HATH NOT THY ROSE A CANKER.”
———
BY MRS. LOIS B. ADAMS.
———
Pressed with the weight of morning dews,
Its slender stalk the rose was bending,
And red and white in changing hues
Upon its cheek were sweetly blending:
But underneath the leaflets bright,
By blushing beauty hid from sight,
Enamored with its fragrance rare,
The canker worm was feasting there.
O! thou who in thy youthful days
Ambition’s wreaths art proudly twining,
And fondly hoping worldly praise
Will cheer thine after years declining,
Beware, lest every tempting rose
That in Ambition’s pathway grows,
Conceal beneath its semblance fair
The lurking canker of despair.
And thou who in thine early morn
For sin the paths of truth art leaving,
Remember, though no pointed thorn
May pierce the garland thou art weaving,
Yet every bud whence flowrets bloom
Shall its own living sweets entomb;
For deep the canker worm of care
Is feasting on its vitals there.
Thou too, the beautiful and bright,
At Pleasure’s shrine devoutly kneeling,
Dost thou not see the fatal blight
Across thy roseate chaplet stealing?
Time hath not touched with fingers cold
Those glossy leaves of beauty’s mould,
And yet each bud and blossom gay
Is marked for slow but sure decay.
O! ye who sigh for flowers that bloom
In one eternal spring of gladness,
Where beauty finds no darkened tomb,
And joy hath never dreamed of sadness;
Elysian fields are yours to roam
Where groves of fadeless pleasures bloom
O! linger not where sorrow’s tears
May blight the cherished hopes of years.
TO A SWALLOW
THAT DROPPED ON DECK DURING A STORM AT SEA.
———
BY WILLIAM FALCONER.
———
Spent are thy wings, poor wanderer on the deep,
Minion of spring, frail wrestler with the breeze,
Led by young hope o’er ever-spreading seas
Where the wing’d storms their prowling vigils keep,
Mayhap ’twas thou that built thy clayey nest
Last springtide at my lattice arched with flowers—
Thy tiny wing that beat the morning hours
And woke my fair girl from her dewy rest.
But no! for ’mid a thousand, were I blind,
Methinks I’d know that bird, by instinct rare;
Yet fear not, heaven’s dark brow looks now more kind.
Repose—then flutter through the brightening air,
But when thou meet’st the sharers of my heart
Thy benefactor’s grief by mystic spell impart!
ERROR.
———
BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY, AUTHOR OF “CONSTANCE LATIMER,” ETC.
———
“Pause, heedless mortal, and reflect—this day,
This very hour—nay, yesterday, mayhap,
Thou mayst have done what cannot be recalled,
And steeped thy future years in darkest night.
Some trivial act or word, now quite forgot,
May have impelled the iron wheels of fate,
Which onward roll to crush thee in their course.”
One of the most beautiful of the many lovely villages which lie within the foldings of the Connecticut river is Elmsdale. Occupying a small peninsula, round which the stream winds so closely that at the first view it seems entirely separated from the main land, and lying aside from the highroad which traverses the valley of the Connecticut, Elmsdale is one of the most quiet and sequestered spots to be found in New England. Like most places which offer no inducement to the spirit of speculation, the village is inhabited chiefly by the descendants of those who had first settled there. The old men have been companions in boyhood, and have sported in the same fields which now echo to the merry shouts of their grandchildren. The most of them still cultivate the farms which belonged to their forefathers, and even the adventurous few, who have been tempted to go out into the world beyond, usually return to finish their days on their native soil.
The arrival of a stranger in a retired village is always a subject of curiosity and interest, but in a place like Elmsdale, where every body knew his neighbor, such an unusual event excited special attention. When, therefore, it was known throughout the hamlet that a strange lady had come to pass the summer with old farmer Moody, all the gossips were on the alert to find out who she could be. But they derived little satisfaction from their skilful questioning of the farmer; all he knew was soon told. The lady was travelling for health, and having been pleased with the situation of his comfortable abode, had applied to be received as a boarder during the summer months, offering to pay liberally in advance. Her evident ill-health, her gentle manners, and the temptation of her ready gold prevailed on the thrifty farmer to assent, and the stranger took possession of a neat chamber in his pleasant cottage.
Close to the bank of the river, on a little eminence commanding a view of the country around Elmsdale, stood a singularly constructed stone building which had long been unoccupied and deserted. Its original owner and projector was a man of singular habits, whose eccentricity had been universally regarded as a species of harmless insanity. Rich and childless, he had erected this mansion according to his own ideas of gothic architecture, and nothing could be more grotesque than its whole appearance. It soon obtained the appellation of Hopeton’s Folly, and though he whose name it bore had long since occupied a narrower house in the silent land, and the property had passed into other hands, the deserted mansion was still known by the same title. Great was the surprise of the villagers when it was known that the strange lady had become the purchaser of Hopeton’s Folly, and that in future she would reside permanently in Elmsdale. Curiosity was newly awakened, and every body was desirous to know something about one who seemed so unprotected and solitary. But there was a quiet dignity in her manners which rebuked and disconcerted impertinent inquiry, while all efforts to draw some information from her single attendant—an elderly sedate woman, who seemed to hold a middle rank between companion and servant—were equally unsuccessful.
“Has Mrs. Norwood been long a widow?” asked a pertinacious newsmonger, who kept the only thread and needle shop in the place, and therefore had a fine opportunity of gratifying her gossipping propensities.
“It is now nearly two years since she lost her husband,” was the reply of the discreet servant, who was busily employed in selecting some tape and pins.
“Only two years, and she has already laid aside her mourning!” exclaimed the shopkeeper; “but I suppose that is an English fashion.”
The woman made no reply, and, consequently, the next day, all the village was given to understand that Mrs. Norwood’s help had told Miss Debby Tattle that Mrs. Norwood was a very rich widow who had just arrived from England. This was all that Miss Debby’s ingenuity could make out of the scanty materials which she had been able to obtain, and with this meagre account people were obliged to be satisfied.
Mrs. Norwood was one of those quiet, gentle beings who, though little calculated to excite a sudden prepossession, always awakened a deep and lasting interest. Her age might have been about eight and twenty, but the ravages of illness, and, perhaps, the touch of a still more cruel destroyer, had given a melancholy expression to her countenance, and a degree of gravity to her manners which made her seem much older. Her features, still classically beautiful, were attenuated and sharpened, her complexion was pale almost to ghastliness, and her thin, flexible lips were perfectly colorless. But she possessed one charm which neither time nor disease could spoil. Her eyes—those dark, soft, lustrous eyes, with their veined and fringed lids, beautiful alike when the full orbs were veiled beneath their shadowy lashes, or when their beaming light turned full upon an object of regard—were the most distinguishing trait in Mrs. Norwood’s countenance. No one dreamed of calling her beautiful, but all noticed the grace of her tall and slightly bending figure, her courteous and ladylike manners, her low, sweet voice, and the touching air of melancholy which seemed to characterize her every movement.
Under the direction of its new mistress, Hopeton’s Folly was now fitted up with a degree of neatness and comfort which it had seemed scarcely capable of assuming. Furniture, plain but costly, was brought from a distant town, the grounds were laid out with a view to elegance rather than mere usefulness, and, in short, money and good taste soon converted the desolate spot into a little paradise of beauty. The neighbors, who, with the kindness which generally prevails in every place where fashion has not destroyed social feeling, had been ready to afford Mrs. Norwood every assistance in the completion of her plans, became now equally ready to share her hospitality, and, for a time, the newly arranged mansion was always full of well-disposed but ill-judging visiters. But Mrs. Norwood’s health was soon made the plea for discountenancing all such attentions on the part of the village gossips. Always courteous and hospitable, she yet declined all visitations to the frequent “hot water conventions” or “tea drinkings” which constituted the chief amusement of the place, while she managed to keep alive the good feelings of her new associates by many acts of unostentatious charity. Simple in her daily habits, benevolent in her impulses, yet retiring and reserved in her manners, Mrs. Norwood made her faithful old servant the almoner of her bounties, while the poor, the sick and the sorrowful were never refused admission to her presence. Her regular attendance on the public duties of religion, in the only church which Elmsdale could then boast, had tended to establish her character for respectability in a community so eminently moral and pious; and when it was known that the pastor, whose rigid ideas of propriety were no secret, had become a frequent visiter at Hopeton’s Folly, no doubt remained as to Mrs. Norwood’s virtues and claims upon general sympathy.
Mr. Allston, who for some ten years had presided over the single church in a place which had fortunately escaped the curse of sectarianism, was a man as remarkable in character as he was peculiar in habit. A close and unwearied student, ascetic in his daily life, and an enthusiast in his profession, he was almost idolized by his people, who regarded him as a being of the most saint-like character. Indeed, if self-denial could afford a title to canonization, he was fully competent to sustain the claim; but such is the inconsistency of human judgment, that Mr. Allston owed his high reputation to a belief in his stoical indifference to earthly temptations, and much of his influence would have been diminished if it had been suspected that resistance to evil ever cost him a single effort. The truth was that nature had made Allston a voluptuary, but religion had transformed him into an ascetic. He had set out in life with an eager thirst after all its pleasures, but he had been stayed in the very outset of his career by the reproaches of an awakened conscience. Violent in all his impulses, and ever in extremes, he had devoted himself to the gospel ministry because the keen goadings of repentance urged him to offer the greatest sacrifice in his power as atonement for past sins. But he had experienced all the trials which await those who, when gathering the manna from heaven, still remember the savory fleshpots of Egypt. His life was a perpetual conflict between passion and principle, and though his earthly nature rarely obtained the mastery, yet the necessity for such unwearied watchfulness had given a peculiar tone of severity to his manners. Like many persons of similar zeal, Allston had committed the error of confounding the affections with the passions of human nature, and believing all earthly ties to be but fetters on the wings of the soul, he carefully avoided all temptation to assume such bonds. His religion was one of fear rather than of love, and forgetting that He who placed man in a world of beauty and delight has said, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice,” he made existence only a protracted scene of self-devotion and privation. A superstitious dread of yielding even to the most innocent impulses had induced him to suppress every feeling of his ardent and excitable nature. He had turned from the face of beauty and the voice of love with the same dread as would have induced him to eschew the temptation of the gaming-table and the wine-cup, and his thirtieth summer found him still a solitary student by the fireside of his widowed mother. His fine talents as a preacher, his powers of persuasion, his thrilling eloquence, aided by the example of his own habits of life, had produced a great effect in the community where he had been called to minister in holy things. The church was in a most flourishing condition; numbers had been united to it, and the influence of the pastor over the minds of all, but especially those of the young, was almost unbounded. Is it strange, therefore, that spiritual pride should have grown up in the heart of the isolated student, and twined its parasitic foliage around many a hardy plant of grace and goodness? Is it to be wondered at if Charles Allston at length indulged the fancy that he had been set apart as one chosen for a high and holy work—that he was destined to be one of the “vessels of honor,” of whom St. Paul has spoken—and that nothing now could sully the spotless garments in which his self-denial had clothed him.
Mrs. Allston had been among the first to welcome the sick stranger to Elmsdale, and, pleased with the gentle grace which characterized her manners, had lavished upon her every kindness. Mrs. Norwood was grateful for her attentions, and seemed happy to find a friend whose mature age and experience could afford her counsel and sympathy. This feeling of childlike dependence, on the one hand, and matronly affection on the other, was growing up between them, and served to establish a closer intimacy than at first might have appeared natural to persons so entirely unlike in character. Mrs. Allston was a woman of unpretending good sense, and plain education, whose rustic habits and utter indifference to etiquette made her appear very different from the languid invalid whose elegant manners and refined language marked her cultivation rather than her strength of mind. But “accident,” and “the strong necessity of loving,” may often account for friendships as well as loves, and this world would be a sad desert of lonely hearts if we could only attach ourselves to our own counterparts. No one could know Mrs. Norwood intimately, without being irresistibly attracted towards a character of such singular sensitiveness and amiability. She seemed like one in whom the elements of strength had been slowly and gradually evolved by circumstances, for, though her disposition was by nature yielding and dependent, yet her habits of thought and action were full of decision and firmness. Gentle and feminine in her feelings, reserved and quiet in her demeanor, she appeared to a careless observer merely as the dignified and discreet, because unprotected woman. But one who looked beneath the calm surface, might have found a deep strong under-current of feeling. Heart-sickness, rather than bodily disease, had been at work with her, and the blight which had passed over her young beauty, was but a type of that which had checked the growth of her warm affections.
Whatever might have been Mrs. Norwood’s feelings when she first took possession of her new abode, she certainly seemed both healthier and happier after a year’s sojourn in Elmsdale. A faint color returned to her thin cheek, a smile, bright and transient as an April sunbeam, often lit up her fine face, her features lost much of their sharpness of outline, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, the feeble, drooping invalid was transformed by the renovating touch of health into the lovely and elegant woman. Yet the same pensiveness characterized her usual manner—the same reluctance to mingle in society was evident in her daily intercourse with her neighbors, and to a stranger she might still seem to be mourning over the memory of a buried affection. But Mrs. Allston and her son alone knew better. They alone knew that affection had been crushed in its very bud by unkindness and neglect—they alone believed that the widow had found death one of the best of friends, when he relieved her from the intolerable bondage of domestic tyranny. Not that Mrs. Norwood had ever confided to them her former history; for the slightest question which had reference to the past always seemed to give her exquisite pain, but a casual remark, a trifling hint, a passing allusion, uttered in the confidence of friendship, had led them to form such conclusions.
Allston had at first regarded the stranger merely as another member added to his flock—another soul for which he must hereafter be responsible. But a closer acquaintance with her awakened a much stronger interest in his mind. He fancied that her character bore a wonderful resemblance to his own. He thought he beheld in her the same secret control over strong emotions, the same silent devotion to deep-felt duties, the same earnest enthusiasm in religion, the same abstraction from worldly pleasures, as had long been the leading traits in his character. He believed that the difference of sex and her early sorrow might account for the diversities which existed between them, and actuated by the belief that he was an instrument in the hands of a higher Power, who had destined him for some great and glorious work, he persuaded himself that Providence had placed her in his path and pointed her out to him, by a mysterious sympathy, as his companion and fellow-laborer in his future duties. Had he not been blinded by the self-reliance which had taken the place of his wonted watchfulness, the very strength of his feelings would have led him to distrust their propriety. But habit had rendered all his ordinary practice of self-denial so easy to him that he fancied himself quite superior to mere earthly temptation, and therefore he was disposed to regard his present excitement, rather as a manifestation of the will of Heaven than as an impulse of natural affection. It cost him much thought and many severe conflicts with his doubts and his zeal ere he could decide upon the course he should pursue. Determined not to listen to the voice of passion but to be governed entirely by a sense of duty, he condemned himself to a rigorous fast of three days in the firm belief that he should receive some expression of the Divine Will. In the deep sleep of exhaustion which fell upon him during the third night, Mrs. Norwood appeared before him in a dream, wearing shining garments and smiling with an expression of perfect beatitude. This was enough for the wild enthusiast. From that moment he placed no restraint upon the promptings of his heart, but considering her as one peculiarly marked out for the same high destiny as himself, he poured out all the fulness of his long hoarded affections at her feet.
Lonely, desolate and sorrowful, Mrs. Norwood was almost bewildered by the sudden light which seemed to break in upon her when she thus found herself the object of true tenderness. She had long admired the genius of Mr. Allston, and her romantic temperament peculiarly fitted her to appreciate the peculiarities of his enthusiastic zeal. She had looked up to him as one as far above her in his unworldly sanctity, as in his gifted intellect, and thus to find herself the chosen of a heart which had heretofore rejected earth’s sweetest gifts of tenderness, was most unlooked-for happiness. She soon learned to love him with a depth and fervor which surprised even herself, yet she had suffered so much in early life that the presence of hope was now welcomed with tearful distrust. She dreaded rather than anticipated the future, and while listening to the wrapt eloquence of her lover, who seemed to spiritualize the impassioned language of affection, she could not but tremble to think what a blank life would be if this new-found bliss were suddenly extinguished. The peculiar tone of Allston’s mind was never more distinctly displayed than in his courtship. Of love he never spoke, but he dwelt on the high and mystical dreams which had charmed his solitude, he pictured passion under the garb of pure devotion, and attired human affections in the robes of immaculate purity until he had completely bewildered himself in the mazes of his own labyrinth of fancies. At length the decisive moment came, and, in a manner equally characteristic and unusual, Allston asked Mrs. Norwood to become his wife. He was scarcely prepared for her excessive agitation, and still less for her indefinite reply.
“It shall be for you to decide, Mr. Allston,” said the gentle widow, as she struggled with her tears, “I will not pretend to have misunderstood your feelings towards me, nor will I attempt to conceal the fact that to your proffered affection I owe the first gleam of happiness which has visited my weary heart since the days of childhood. But I have deceived you, and I cannot accept your hand while you remain ignorant of the events of my early life. Some months since, I wrote what I cannot bring my lips to utter, and you will find in this manuscript all you ought to know. Judge not too hardly of my concealment—my only error has been silence on a subject with which the world had naught to do, and this I trust your heart will not visit with too severe a punishment.”
Allston took the papers, and silent and dismayed hurried to the seclusion of his study. Dreading some evil, though he knew not what shape it might assume, he broke the seal and read as follows:
“Left an orphan at a very early age, my first recollections are those of school life. My parents, who were residents though not natives of the island of Jamaica, sent me to England for my education, and, dying soon after my departure, I became the ward of my mother’s cousin, a gay and dissipated bachelor, whose house offered not a proper home to a young girl. I was the heiress to great wealth, but was, at the same time, a homeless and desolate child, who might well have envied the privileges of domestic affection which are enjoyed by the offspring of poverty. My wealth procured me respect and consideration among my teachers and a few interested school-fellows, while it purchased for me exemption from much of the discipline of the school, as well as from many of the studies which I wished to avoid. I was, therefore, little likely to profit by the advantages of my position in life, while its disadvantages were in my case greatly multiplied. I was a wayward, wilful, warm-hearted child, full of impulsive affections, but irritable in temper, and, though perfectly docile to the law of kindness, utterly beyond the subjugation of severity. Frank and confiding in my disposition, I was easily led to place confidence in those who treated me with a semblance of affection, and the sense of loneliness which oppressed my heart, even in childhood, led me rather to seek for the friendship of those by whom I was surrounded, while the romance, which shows itself in a greater or less degree in the developing character of every school girl, assumed in me the form of a morbid desire to inspire affection in those whom Providence had placed around me, to fill the places of parents, and brothers and sisters to my desolate life.
“I was in my fifteenth year, full of exaggerated sensibility, and just beginning to model my dreams of future happiness after the standard afforded by my favorite novels, when a circumstance, apparently of trivial moment, occurred to shadow my whole life with sorrow. The only accomplishment in which I made any decided progress was that of drawing, and in this I had early exhibited both taste and skill. Our drawing-master, an old and wily Italian, requested permission to introduce his nephew, who could materially aid him in instructing us to sketch from nature; and, as it involved our school-mistress in no additional expense, she readily assented. Our new teacher was accordingly introduced to us under the name of Signior Baldini, but it needed scarcely one look to make us doubt his relationship to the old man, for his florid complexion, blond hair, and blue eyes bore little resemblance to the dark countenance and classical features of the fine Italian face. Those of us who were novel readers immediately fancied that we could detect beneath this humble disguise some noble heir or enamored youth who sought to obtain access to a ladye-love immured within the walls of our school. Our young and glowing hearts, full of passions which had been prematurely developed by the mischievous tenor of our stolen reading, and ready to welcome any thing which might give occupation to their restlessness, were quickly excited in favor of the new comer. Our sketching from nature required us to take many walks in the vicinity, and, though we were never unaccompanied by one of the female teachers, yet a thousand opportunities for forming an imprudent intimacy occurred during these excursions. I soon found, however, that the attentions of Signior Baldini were especially directed to me, and the vanity of my sex, as well as my own excited fancy, led me to encourage rather than repulse his proffered advances. I cannot recall all the details of the vile conspiracy to which I fell a victim. Imagine a child of fifteen summers subjected to the arts of a man more than twice her age—a man who had studied human nature in its worst forms, and therefore well knew how to take advantage of its slightest tendency to errors—a man whose talents enabled him to conceal the heart of a demon beneath the features of a demigod. Imagine the effect of these arts upon a sensitive and romantic girl, a lonely and orphaned creature who was yearning for the voice of affection, and weaving many a beautiful fancy of future happiness, to be found only in reciprocal affection, and you will anticipate the result.
“A well invented story of high birth, unmerited misfortunes, and a long cherished passion for me, awakened my sympathy, and I soon imagined that nothing could repay my lover’s tenderness but the bestowal of my hand and fortune. I fancied myself deeply and devotedly attached to one who had submitted to the degradation of disguise for my sake, and, on the day when I attained my sixteenth year, I eloped with my lover, who now dropped his assumed title and adopted his true name of Wallingford. As my guardian was at that time in Paris, we met with no molestation, and were privately married in London, where we had decided to take up our abode. I afterwards learned that those of my teachers who had been parties to the plot were well paid for their services, while the only real sufferer was the principal of the establishment, who had been kept in total ignorance of the scheme, and whose dignified sense of propriety was shocked at having such a stigma affixed to her school. When my guardian returned he read me a lecture on my imprudence, and tried to satisfy his conscience for past neglect, by refusing to allow me more than a mere maintenance until I should attain my majority. To this, however, I refused submission, and the matter was finally compromised in a manner quite satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Wallingford immediately engaged elegant lodgings, and we commenced living in a style better suited to my future fortune than to my actual income.
“My heart sickens when I look back to the weary years which succeeded my imprudent marriage. As time matured my judgment I was pained by the discovery of many weaknesses and faults in my husband, to which I would willingly have remained blind. Yet the discovery of these did not impair the simple, child-like affection with which I regarded the only being on earth to whom I was bound by any ties. I clung to him as the only one in the wide world whom I was permitted to love, and it required but little effort on his part to have strengthened my girlish fondness into the lasting fervor of womanly tenderness. While yet I remained in my minority Mr. Wallingford treated me with some show of consideration. Fitful gleams of kindness, transient visitings of former fondness, glimpses of the better nature which had been so perverted by evil habits, and endearments still bestowed in moments of persuasion, linked my heart to the ideal which I had enshrined in his image. But no sooner was I put in possession of my fortune than he threw off the mask entirely. I was too much in his power to render any further concealment necessary, and he now appeared before me in all the true deformity of his character. Dissipated in his habits, coarse in his feelings, low in his pursuits and pleasures, he had only sought me for the wealth which could minister to his depravity.
“I will not pain you by a detail of the petty tyranny to which I was now subjected. My impetuous temper was at first aroused, but, alas! it was soon subdued by frightful severity. Indifference, neglect, intemperance, infidelity, nay, even personal ill treatment, which left the discolored badge of slavery upon my flesh for days and weeks, were now my only portion. Broken in health and in spirit, I prayed for death to release me from my sufferings, and I verily believe my husband sought to aid my wishes by his cruel conduct. But the crushed worm was at length compelled to turn upon the foot which trampled it. I was driven from my home—a home which my wealth had furnished with all the appliances of taste and elegance—and placed in a farm-house at some distance from London, while a vile woman, whose name was but another word for pollution, ruled over my house. To increase the horrors of my situation, I learned that Wallingford was taking measures to prove me insane, and thus rid himself of my presence while he secured the guardianship of my person and property. This last injury aroused all the latent strength of my nature. Hitherto I had been like a child brought up in servitude and crouching beneath the master’s blow, but I was now suddenly transformed into the indignant and energetic woman.
“Alone and unaided I determined to appeal to the laws of the land for redress, and prudence directed me to men as wise as they were virtuous, who readily undertook my cause. Wallingford was startled at my sudden rebellion, but he was never unprepared for deeds of evil. My servants were suborned, papers were forged, falsehoods were blazoned abroad, all the idle gossip which had floated for its passing moment on the breath of scandal like the winged seed of some noxious plant on the summer breeze, was carefully treasured, and every thing that power could effect was tried to make me appear degraded in character and imbecile in mind. The circumstances attending my marriage—my first fatal error, committed at the suggestion and under the influence of him who now adduced it as proof of my weakness—was one of the evidences of my unworthiness, while the utterings of a goaded spirit and the wild anguish of a breaking heart were repeated as the language of insanity. But for once justice and equity triumphed over the quibbles of the law. The decree of the highest court in the realm released me from my heavy bondage. A conditional divorce which allowed me full power to marry again, but restrained my husband from such a privilege, in consequence of his well-attested cruelty and ill treatment, was the result of our protracted and painful lawsuit. My fortune, sadly wasted and diminished, was placed in the hands of trustees for my sole benefit, and I immediately settled upon Wallingford a sum sufficient to place him far above want, upon the sole condition that he never intruded himself into my presence.
“After these arrangements were completed I determined to put the ocean between me and my persecutor. On my twenty-sixth birthday—just ten years from the day which saw me a bride—I landed in America. Alas! how changed were all my prospects, how altered all my feelings! I was still in the prime of life, but hope and joy and all the sweet influences of affection were lost to me forever, and after wandering from place to place I finally took up my abode in Elmsdale, rather from a sense of utter weariness than from any anticipation of peace. I little knew that Providence had prepared for me so sweet a rest after all my sufferings. I little knew that peace and hope, aye, and even happiness, were yet in store for me. Resigning a name to which I had no longer any claim, I resumed my family name of Norwood, and sought to appear in society as the widowed rather than as the divorced wife. I have thus avoided painful remarks and impertinent questionings, while I was enabled to secure for myself a quiet retreat from the turmoil of the world. Perhaps to you, Charles Allston, I ought to have been more frank, but surely you cannot blame me for shrinking from the disclosure of such bitter and degrading memories. You have now learned all my early history—you have seen my error and you have traced its punishment—let me now unfold the page which can reveal the present.
“A fancy, light as the gossamer which the wind drives on its wing, first led to my marriage. I was a child in heart and mind and person, when I became the victim of arts which might have misled a wiser head and a less susceptible heart. Left to myself I should probably have forgotten my first love fancy even as one of the thousand dreams which haunt the brain of youth. But if, after my marriage, I had experienced kindness and tenderness from my husband, the feeling would have deepened into earnest and life-long affection, instead of curdling into hatred and contempt within my bosom. The love of my girlhood was blighted even as a flower which blossoms out of time, and loneliness has hitherto been my lot through life. Will you deem me too bold, my friend, if I tell you that from you I have learned my first lesson in womanly duty? Till I knew you I dreamed not of the power of a fervent and true passion—till I beheld you I believed my heart was cold and dead to all such gentle impulses. You have taught me that happiness may yet be found even for me. In loving you I am but doing homage to virtue and wisdom and piety—in bowing down before your image I am but worshipping the noblest attributes of human nature enshrined within your heart. I dared not pour out the fullness of my joy until I had told you my sad tale, but now that you know all—now that no shadow of distrust can fall upon the sunshine of the future, come to me, and assure me with your own dear voice that my troubled dream is now forever past, and that the dawn of happiness is breaking upon my weary heart!”
To comprehend the full effect of this letter on Charles Allston, the peculiarity of his character—his strict ideas of duty—his devotion to his holy calling—his shrinking dread of any thing which could, by any possibility, tend to diminish his influence over the consciences of his flock—and his long cherished dread of self-indulgence—must ever be borne in mind. He had loved Eleanor Norwood with a fervor startling even to himself, and according to his usual distrustful habits of thought, he had feared lest the very intensity of his feelings was a proof of their sinfulness. Accustomed to consider every thing as wrong which was peculiarly gratifying to himself—measuring by the amount of every enjoyment the extent of its wickedness—restraining the most innocent impulses because he conceived heaven could only be won by continual sacrifices—he had shrunk in fear and trembling at his own temerity when his overmastering passion led him to pour forth his feelings to the object of his love. He had retired to his apartment in a state of pitiable agitation, and while he awaited Mrs. Norwood’s reply with hope, he yet half repented of his proffered suit, lest there should have been too much of the leaven of mere earthly tenderness in the bosom which had vowed to forsake all its idols. This letter therefore produced a terrible revulsion in his feelings. His rigid sense of duty, and his adherence to divine rather than human laws, compelled him to behold in Eleanor Norwood only the wife of another. Vile and unworthy as Wallingford might be, he was to Allston’s view still the husband, and though the tie might be loosened by the hand of man it could only be entirely severed by the will of God. All the sternness of that long practised asceticism, which had given Allston such a twofold character, was called forth by the thought of the sin he had so nearly committed. The wild enthusiasm of his nature led him to regard Mrs. Norwood as a temptress sent to try the strength of his self-denying piety. He remembered the tale of the hermit, who for forty years abode in the wilderness, sinless in thought and in deed, while he kept his eye ever fixed upon the cross; but the moment of wavering came—the holy eremite turned his gaze for one single instant from the symbol, and Satan, who had long watched in vain, obtained the mastery over him whose life-long piety had not availed against a moment’s weakness. Allston shuddered as his busy fancy suggested the parallel between the monkish legend and his own present feelings. The thought of the disgrace which would attend him who, while reproving sin in others, could be accused of cherishing it in his own household—of the judgment which would fall upon him who should dare to minister to the people in holy things, while he bore the marks of a deadly leprosy within his own bosom—until at length the spiritual pride, which was in truth his besetting sin, subdued all lighter emotions.
That evening Mrs. Norwood sat in her quiet room, with the light of a shaded lamp falling upon the gentle beauty of a face now lighted up with hope, and which, but for the restless and hurried glance which was occasionally turned upon the quaintly fashioned clock, might have seemed the picture of placid happiness. A soft glow flushed her cheek, her eyes were full of radiance, and, as she raised her head in the attitude of a listener, a smile of almost childlike joyousness parted her flexible lips. A step resounded on the gravel walk without. Her first impulse led her to spring forward to welcome the expected visitant, but womanly pride checked her in mid career, and she yet stood in half uncertainty when the door opened to admit a servant who handed her a small parcel. Her cheek grew ashy pale as she broke the seal. A paper dropped from the envelop—it was her own letter to Allston; and she sank into a chair as she unfolded the note which accompanied it. Written in Allston’s hand, yet so blotted, and traced in such irregular characters, that the agitation of the writer might well be divined, were these words:
“I will not express the agony of mind with which I have perused the enclosed papers. I have been tried almost beyond my strength, but I have been mercifully spared the commission of a crime at which my soul shudders. I will not upbraid you, madam, for your cruel concealment; your own conscience will be your accuser, and it will not fail to remind you that your deception has nearly hurled me from an eminence which it has been the labor of my life to reach. But you have been only an instrument in the hands of a higher power. I fancied myself superior to temptation, and God has sent you to teach me the necessity of closer watchfulness over my still frail nature. Eleanor Norwood, I have loved you as I never loved earthly creature before, but sooner would I suffer the keenest pangs of that chronic heartbreak, to which the martyrdom of the pile and fagot is but pastime, than take to my arms the wife of a living husband. You have made me wretched but you cannot make me criminal. Henceforth we meet no more on earth, for I have vowed to tear your image from my heart, though, even now, every fibre bleeds at the rude sundering of such close knit ties. Receive my forgiveness and my farewell.”
When Mrs. Norwood’s faithful old servant entered the room, about an hour after the receipt of this letter, she found her mistress lying senseless on the floor. Suspecting something like the truth, the woman prudently gathered up the papers from view, and then summoned assistance. Mrs. Norwood was carried to her apartment and medical aid was immediately procured. The physician pronounced her to be suffering from strong nervous excitement, and, after giving her a sleeping draught, prescribed perfect quiet for the next few days. But ere morning she was in a state of delirium, and fears were entertained for her intellect if not for her life. Several days passed in great uncertainty, but at length hope revived and Mrs. Norwood once more awoke to consciousness. Feeble as an infant, however, she required great care to raise her from the brink of the grave, and the springs of life, so sadly shattered by long continued sorrow, were now in danger of being broken by a single stroke. Disease seemed undetermined in its final attack, and at length assumed the form under which it most frequently assists the insidious labors of secret sorrow. A hectic cough now racked her feeble frame, and it was evident that consumption would soon claim another victim. Just at this time a letter, sealed with black, was forwarded to Mrs. Norwood’s address, and after being withheld from her several weeks, by advice of her physician, was finally given to her because all hope of prolonging her life was at an end. The perusal of this letter seemed rather to soothe than to excite the sinking invalid. “It comes too late,” was her only exclamation as she deposited it in a little cabinet which stood beside her bed, and from that moment she made no allusion to its contents.
It was remarked in the village that Mr. Allston had become excessively severe in his denunciations of error, while his habits had become more rigid and reserved than ever. His former persuasive eloquence had given place to violent and bitter revilings of sin, while those who applied to him for religious consolation were terrified rather than attracted by the threatenings of the fiery zealot. Once only did he seem moved by gentler feelings. An aged clergyman, who occasionally visited him from a distant town, was summoned to the bedside of Mrs. Norwood, and when he returned to Mr. Allston’s study he feelingly described the bodily pangs and angelic patience of the gentle sufferer. The frame of the stern man shook as he listened, and tears—such tears as sear rather than relieve the heart—fell from his eyes. It was one of the last struggles of human feeling in the breast of one who vainly fancied himself marked out for a higher than human destiny—one more was yet to come, and then earth held no claim upon his heart.
It was not long delayed, for the time soon arrived when the bell tolled for her whose sorrowful life and early death had been the penalty of a single error. Allston stood beside the coffin and saw within its deep shadow the pale and stony features of the being whom he had loved; and even while his heart smote him as the shortener of her brief and melancholy span of life, he yet nerved himself with the high, stern resolve of one who suffers in the cause of duty. With that cold brow beneath his gaze, he poured forth, from the depths of an agonized heart, a prayer whose solemn eloquence thrilled every listener like a voice from the grave. No sound escaped his lips as the clods of the valley fell rattling on the coffin-lid which shrouded the heart so sorely tried in life, but, in the deep midnight, groans and bitter cries, which rived his stern bosom, were heard issuing from the pastor’s lonely closet.
Mrs. Norwood’s old servant inherited the property in Elmsdale, and one of her first duties was to place in Mr. Allston’s hands the cabinet which she said her mistress had requested might be given him after her death. It contained only Mrs. Norwood’s letter and her lover’s reply, together with a third, in an unknown hand, bearing a black seal. This last was dated some months earlier than the others, and contained the tidings of Mr. Wallingford’s death. He had fallen a victim to his own misdeeds in Italy, and at the moment when Allston had considered himself the subject of a temptation intended to try his strength, the divorced wife was in reality free from every shadow of a tie.
Why had she not disclosed these tidings to her scrupulous lover? Ask rather why she who had twice suffered from man’s wayward nature, and who had escaped from the vices of one only to perish by the too rigid virtues of another, should place trust in any earthly affection? Sick of life, hopeless of future peace, sinking under a fatal disease, she had taken a lesson from the inferior creation:
“mute
The camel labors with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence.”
TOUSKY WOUSKY.
———
BY EPES SARGENT.
———
“O, manners! that this age should bring forth such creatures! that nature should be at leisure to make them!”
Ben Jonson.
I became acquainted with Count Tousky Wousky in Paris somewhere in the year 1836. For some reason or other, which I did not at first understand, he devoted himself chiefly to the society of strangers, and, of all strangers, most affected the company of Americans. At that time there were several fair daughters of the Pilgrims in the gay metropolis, a few Knickerbockers, and at least one descendant of the Huguenot race in the person of Miss P . . . . . of Charleston. In this circle Tousky Wousky aspired to figure. He was a tall, handsome fellow, who had seen perhaps eight and twenty summers, with fine long and dark locks, to say nothing of the most unexceptionable whiskers and imperial. He smiled enchantingly, and the glimpses of his ivory-white teeth between their cushions of well-dyed bristles were quite “killing.” Altogether he was a most personable individual—waltzed charmingly—attitudinized beyond any dancer at the opera-house—and, though he said nothing except in a sort of mute challenge to man and woman to “look and admire,” he carried away more captive hearts than any man of his day.
In French society the count was very generally eschewed. Having no apparent means of livelihood, and being well understood to carry as little in his pocket if possible as in his head, the young men about town were somewhat shy of him, and he was considered not much better than a professed gambler. This would of course never have been known, had it not been that his familiarity was such with the few Americans of wealth who visited Paris during the winter of 1836, that he had made fourteen distinct matrimonial proposals. So susceptible was he, that he fell desperately in love with no less than fourteen of the sex in the same season—compassed fourteen courtships by his languishing and silent adoration—was fourteen times on his knees to fourteen fair creatures varying in age from fourteen to forty—fourteen times was referred to Monsieur, mon père, or to Monsieur, mon frère—had his character submitted to fourteen inquisitions, and was fourteen times politely informed that “his addresses must be discontinued.”
I left Paris, and thought nothing more of Count Tousky Wousky till I was walking some months afterward in Broadway. My friend Lieutenant P . . . . of the army, whom Commodore Elliot will probably recollect, if he recollects having been in the Mediterranean, was my guide-book and index on the occasion, for having been absent some years, the faces of my townsmen and townswomen were quite strange to me.
“P . . . .,” said I; “indicate the individual we have just passed. I have seen him a thousand times, but for the life of me I cannot recollect where or when.”
“That!” exclaimed P . . . .; “I should know from your question, that you were just off the salt water. But how very odd! That man is Count Tousky Wousky. How the deuce did it happen that you, who were so long in Paris, did not know Tousky Wousky?”
“Tousky Wousky!” I rejoined. “That’s his name sure enough—but what is Tousky Wousky doing here?”
“That’s neither your business nor mine. He is the handsomest man on the pavé, and has the entire run of the city, from the eight shilling balls at Tammany to the most brilliant routes in Bond street or Waverley Place.”
“Quite a range, P . . . . But does he patronize Tammany?”
“To be sure he does; and why not? It’s all one to him; and he has got the idea that there is good picking in the Bowery. He has heard of butchers’ families, where good ribs were to be had, and is not sure that he might not get pretty well suited at some wealthy tailor’s. In short, he is in search of a rich wife, and he is not over particular who or what she may be as long as she can plank the pewter.”
“That is to say, P . . . ., he is a penniless adventurer, who cannot find a wife in his own country, and proposes to confer the honor on us. Is that the arrangement?”
“You are not far out of the way in your guess.”
“But how is the individual received?”
“O, with open arms, to be sure. He gave out on his passage, that he was coming to this country to marry a fortune; that he should do it in about six months, and return to Paris.”
“How excessively condescending! And what credentials did he bring with him?”
“O, he carries his credentials on his face. The only necessary passports now to society are whiskers—moustache—imperial! They are the open sesame to the hearts of the ladies.”
“But what says papa?”
“I understand there was a general meeting of all our millionaires, and that they voted him forthwith the freedom of the city, and suggested that he should do the country the honor to marry some one of their daughters.”
“And what said the count?”
“Why, the count said that he would quarter on ’em a while before pitching his tent; that he would dine about with the old prigs, and drink their good wine, and that as soon as he became well assured in regard to the respective fortunes of the young ladies, he would just fling his handkerchief at one of them, and she is expected to drop forthwith into his arms.”
Not long after this conversation, it was my lot to meet Tousky Wousky on several occasions in society. It seemed to be the prevailing belief among those upon whom he condescended to shed the light of his smiles, that he was the sole remaining representative of a noble and ancient family, and that he was visiting the United States solely in pursuit of relaxation from arduous military duties in Algiers. Such was his own story, and such was the story which his defenders believed.
I must plead guilty to never having been able to discover the peculiar charm of the count’s manners and appearance. I had heard much of the air noble, which was said to be his distinguishing trait, but could see nothing but the air puppyish, if I may so characterize a manner of supreme indifference to the comfort and convenience of those around him. In a ball-room, I have seen him extend himself at full length upon a sofa, after a quadrille, and fan himself with his perfumed handkerchief, while dozens of ladies were near in want of a seat. At other times he would place himself astride of a chair, with his face to the back, and his long legs protruded so as to endanger the necks of those, who might venture to step over them. These little liberties were regarded merely as the elegant abandon of one accustomed to the first society of Europe; and instances were cited of a similar aristocratic disregard of conventional decency among certain English noblemen, who had visited the country.
But what seemed to certify the count’s claims to nobility was the erudition he displayed in all that related to gastronomy. Did you ever notice the air of sagacity with which a chicken sips water, cocking her head after every bill full, and apparently passing judgment upon its quality? Of such an act would Tousky Wousky remind you when he took soup. Occasionally his criticisms would be given with a vivacity and esprit, which would excite general surprise. He could tell at a glance the name of the most recondite Parisian pâté. His decisions in regard to entremets, hors d’œuvres, and vol au vents were unimpeachable; and he would discourse upon sole en matelotte Normande with tears in his eyes. There was something earnest and affecting in the count’s manner when he touched upon these topics; whereas when questioned concerning events having relation to his military career, his answers were confused, imperfect and unsatisfactory.
After some months of investigation and hesitation, Tousky Wousky fixed his eyes upon the daughter of a retired tailor of the name of Remnant. Mature deliberation and inquiry convinced him that she was the most eligible of the candidates that had yet been presented to his notice. Old Remnant had commenced life as a journeyman—sat cross-legged upon the counter from his fourteenth to his twenty-first year—then opened a sort of slop-shop somewhere in Maiden Lane—married his master’s only daughter—succeeded to his business and wealth—and accumulated a large fortune.
Heaven forbid that I should breathe a flippant word against a vocation, in which I have encountered more than one ornament to humanity—men, in whom the Christian virtues of patience and forbearance were signally developed; of whose capacities for long suffering I could relate the most affecting instances. But I blame Remnant, not for having been a tailor, but for his foolish ambition in after life to sink all memorials of the shop, and launch into fashionable life. We all remember the story of the English member of Parliament, who, on being twitted by some sprig of nobility with having been bred a tailor, retorted, “if the gentleman himself had been so bred he would have been a tailor still.” The reply was as just as it was spirited, and showed a noble pride on the part of the speaker, in comparing his past with his present position. Remnant began by discontinuing his annual tribute to the Tailors’ Charitable Fund. Then he neglected to attend their annual ball at Tammany; and finally he cut his old associates in trade when he met them in Broadway—visited Europe, returned, built an elegant house—and set up a carriage with a liveried driver and footman. In all these procedures I have reason to believe that he was mainly influenced by his wife, whose fashionable furor was inextinguishable.
Through his endorsements for certain “genteel” speculators, Remnant contrived to get introduced with his family into what they believed to be the “fashionable circles.” The daughter, Sophia Ann, was a pretty, good-natured, frank, and unpretending girl, who, having received a fair education, bore her part extremely well in gay life, and betrayed few symptoms of the character of her parentage. Rumor whispered that she entertained a secret penchant for young Allen, a clerk in Flash, Fleetwood & Co.'s, establishment in Broadway. It was noticed that she always made her purchases at that shop, and frequently she remained much longer in conversation than was absolutely necessary for the closing of her bargains. Where was the propriety too of negotiating for a pair of gloves or a skein of silk in so very low and mysterious a tone of voice? It was suspicious, to say the least of it.
The ecstasy of Mrs. Remnant when Tousky Wousky condescended to ask an introduction to herself and daughter was beyond all reasonable bounds; and when, the next morning, he honored them with a call, it was as if she and all her family had received a brevet of nobility.
“Who knows, Sophia Ann,” said she after the count had taken his departure, “who knows but the count has been struck with your appearance, and intends making proposals?”
“And if he does, mamma,” replied Sophy, “you may be very sure he will propose in vain, so far as I am concerned. A vulgar, coarse, ill-mannered fop! Did you notice the crumbs of bread upon his odious moustaches?”
“A very good proof of his gentility, my dear. It shows that he has just breakfasted. I am amazed at your language, Sophia Ann.”
“Indeed I thoroughly detest the fellow. I hope you will not invite him to the house.”
“Indeed and indeed I shall, Miss Pert. I see the drift of your objections. You have taken a fancy to that low-bred fellow, Allen, and would disgrace your family by an unequal match. But let me advise you to beware how you encourage any such presumption. Your father is as determined as I am to cut you off with a shilling should you ever marry without our consent.”
Here Sophia rose, and, with her handkerchief to her eyes, left the room, while Mrs. Remnant sat down and penned a note to Tousky Wousky, asking the honor of his company at dinner the next day.
In less than two weeks after the count’s introduction he proposed for Sophia Ann. The mother was as propitious as could have been desired, and the father, who was swayed in all things by the superior energy of his wife, acquiesced on this occasion. Tousky Wousky supposed that all the essential preliminaries were now settled, and that it only remained to fix a day for the marriage ceremony. He had omitted, however, one little form. He had not yet asked the young lady herself whether she had any objection to becoming his bride. Dire was his dismay when, on popping the question, she rejected him point blank, without hesitation, reservation or equivocation. He twirled his moustaches, and showed his teeth in what was meant for a smile irresistible. Strange to say, Sophia Ann did not rush into his arms. He knelt and rolled up his eyes after the most approved Parisian fashion. The obdurate, intractable girl laughed in his face. He rose and attempted to clasp her waist and kiss her. Sophia upset a heavy piano-stool upon his shins, and, with a face burning with indignant blushes, left the room.
Tousky Wousky was completely nonplussed. The idea of being rejected by a “native,” one, too, who had never visited Paris, had not entered into his calculations. He looked in the glass—surveyed his incomparable whiskers, and glanced at his blameless legs.
“Sacrè! The girl must be crazy!” muttered Tousky Wousky, as he finished his examination of his person.
He laid his case immediately before the parents of the refractory young lady; alluded very pointedly to the numerous countesses and baronesses who were perishing for him in France, Germany, and Italy—swore that he had never known what love was till he had met Sophia Ann—and concluded by avowing the romantic determination to depart instantly for Niagara, jump into a skiff just above the rapids, loosen it from the shore, and, with folded arms, glide down over the cataract into the “peaceful arms of oblivion.”
The parents of Sophia Ann were much shocked at this tragic menace; and the mother declared that the cruel girl should be brought to her senses—it wasn’t probable she would ever have such another chance of becoming a countess—and marry Tousky Wousky she should! And off the old lady started to enforce her commands in person. Sophia Ann was not to be found. The fact was, she had just discovered that she was in want of a quantity of muslin, and knowing of no place in the city where she could procure it of a quality more to her satisfaction, she hastened to the store of Flash, Fleetwood & Co., and had a long consultation with the handsome clerk.
“Never mind, Sophy dear,” said Allen, after he had heard the story of her persecutions, “I have a plan for unmasking him. Do not suppose that I have been idle since you told me of your mother’s designs.”
And Sophy tripped home and listened very resignedly to a long lecture from her mother, upon the impropriety of young ladies presuming to decide for themselves upon matrimonial questions.
One of the consequences of Allen’s plan ensued the very day after these events.
Tousky Wousky was parading Broadway in all his magnificence. The African king, whose principal escape from nudity consisted in a gold-edged chapeau bras, never moved among his fellows with a more complacent feeling of superiority than Tousky Wousky experienced as he strutted across Chambers street toward the Astor House. His forehead was contracted in a superb and scornful frown—his whiskers and moustaches looked black as night—and his half-closed eyes seemed as if they deemed it an act of condescension on their part to open upon the works of the Creator. Tousky Wousky swung his cane, and looked neither to the right nor to the left, except when he bowed to some envied female acquaintance. As for that highly respectable portion of the human race, the males, the count rarely condescended to recognize their existence. He passed them by with supreme indifference. Had he known how many consultations there had been as to the propriety of knocking him down, perhaps he would have amended his conduct in this respect.
On the occasion, at which my narrative had now arrived, the count was interrupted in his promenade by an individual, gaily but not fastidiously dressed, who accosted him in the most familiar manner.
“Well met, Philippe!” cried the stranger, holding out his hand.
“You are mistaken in the person, sir,” said Tousky Wousky, drawing himself up, and attempting to look magnificently dignified.
“None of your nonsense, Philippe,” returned the stranger; “don’t you remember your old fellow-artist, Alphonse? Of course you do. Come—”
“Out of the way, fellow, or I will demolish you with my cane.”
“Be civil, Philippe, and acknowledge me, or I will pull off your whiskers here in Broadway.”
This threat seemed to operate forcibly upon the count, for, extending his hand and striking an attitude, he exclaimed, “Alphonse! why how the devil did you get here?”
“Hush! don’t call me Alphonse. I am Count Deflamzi.”
“The deuce you are! Why, I am a count, too.”
“So I supposed. How do you get on?”
“Brilliantly—and you? When did you arrive?”
“By the last Cunard steamer. Is it possible you haven’t seen me announced in the newspapers?”
“I never read them. I consider newspapers a bore.”
“Ha! I understand. Beau Shatterly thought the same of parish registers—‘a d—d impertinent invention!’ So they are—as thus; Beware of imposition: A scoundrel calling himself Count Tousky Wousky, but whose real name is—”
“Hush! Are you mad?”
“Ah! Philippe! Philippe! The chief cook at Vevay’s always used to say you would come to the gallows—eh?”
As he revived the recollection of this pleasant vaticination, Count Deflamzi poked the end of his cane at one of Tousky Wousky’s ribs, in a manner which partook more of the familiar than the dignified. Poor Tousky Wousky bent his body to escape the blow, while he looked the picture of despair—the more so as at that moment old Remnant’s carriage drew up near the curb-stone, and Sophy’s mother put her head out of the window to speak to her intended son-in-law.
“Good-bye, Alphonse; I will see you again soon,” said Tousky Wousky, endeavoring to shake off his unwelcome friend, and darting towards the carriage.
Deflamzi followed him, and after permitting him to greet Mrs. Remnant, and receive from her some intelligence in regard to Sophia Ann, he pulled Tousky Wousky by the skirt, and said; “My dear fellow, this is really embarrassing. Why don’t you introduce me to the lady?”
“Ahem! Blast the—Oh, yes—certainly—Mrs. Remnant, Count Deflamzi—Count Deflamzi, Mrs. Remnant.”
“Glad to see you, old lady,” said Deflamzi; and then, at a loss for a remark to show his quality, he added—“What a devilish vulgar country this is of yours!”
“An eccentric devil!” whispered Tousky Wousky in Mrs. Remnant’s ear; “who has a plenty of money and thinks he has a right to abuse every thing and every body.”
“I am most happy, count, to make your acquaintance,” said Mrs. Remnant, quite overlooking the puppy’s impertinence in her delight at being seen conversing with a couple of counts in Broadway.
“The pleasure of meeting Mrs. Remnant to-day is as unexpected as it is gratifying,” said Deflamzi. “I had intended asking my old friend Rufsky Fusky here, long since to introduce me, but—”
“Rufsky Fusky!”
“A nick-name, by which he used to call me when we were boys,” said poor Tousky Wousky hastily, and then, in an aside, he muttered to Deflamzi; “Curse you, Alphonse! I wish you would call me by my right name.”
“What is it?”
“Tousky Wousky.”
“Ah, yes! pardon me,” said Deflamzi; and then, turning to the old lady in the coach, he continued; “as I was saying, Madam, I had intended asking my old friend, Whisky Frisky, to introduce me before, but the good fortune of—”
“Whisky Frisky!”
“You see he will have his joke, Madam,” said Tousky Wousky, making a painful effort to smile.
“Ha, yes! A wag, I see. Well, I like pleasantry.”
“What I was about to say,” resumed Deflamzi, “simply was, that the felicitous accident which has made me acquainted with Mrs. Remnant, enables me to extend in person an invitation, which I had intended sending through our excellent friend Rowdy Powdy. Shall I have the honor of seeing you and your charming daughter, with Mr. Remnant of course, at a small dinner party, which I give at the Globe to-morrow to our distinguished friend here, Count Hoaxy Folksy?”
Mrs. Remnant was too much fluttered and flattered by this mark of respect to pay any attention to Deflamzi’s eccentric perversions of his friend’s name. She eagerly accepted the invitation; and Deflamzi took his leave of her and Tousky Wousky, with a significant hint to the latter, that if he did not come too he should be exposed.
“Dinner will be on the table at six. Au revoir!” said Deflamzi, bowing grotesquely, and strutting down Broadway.
“How vastly genteel!” thought Mrs. Remnant.
The next day, at the appointed hour, a select party, consisting of the two counts, the Remnant family, Mr. Allen, and half a dozen fashionable young men, whom Tousky Wousky remembered to have seen frequently in society, met in one of Blancard’s pleasant parlors. Mrs. Remnant was a little puzzled at encountering Allen; but, remembering that Deflamzi was an “eccentric devil,” she concluded it was all right. The good lady was placed at one end of the table, and Deflamzi took his seat at the other. Tousky Wousky and Sophia Ann sat opposite to each other, near the centre. Soup was handed round in the midst of an animated conversation, in which Deflamzi, however, did not join. His manner toward all but Tousky Wousky seemed singularly constrained and respectful.
As the soup was being passed round, a keen eye might have detected a piece of legerdemain practised by one of the waiters, in serving Tousky Wousky. Instead of giving him the plate, which Deflamzi had filled from the tureen, another was placed before him, which seemed to have been whisked in a mysterious manner from a side-table, unnoticed of course by the unsuspecting count.
The minute Tousky Wousky tasted his soup, he dropped his spoon with a face expressive of the deepest disgust.
“What is the matter, count?” asked Sophia Ann, while a mischievous twinkle was swimming in her dark eyes.
“Is it possible you can relish that soup?” inquired Tousky Wousky, regarding her with amazement as she swallowed spoonful after spoonful.
“It is very good, is it not?” said Sophy, looking the very picture of sweet simplicity.
Tousky Wousky took another spoonful, then suddenly seized a tumbler of iced water to drown the recollection of the nauseous compound. Turning to Deflamzi, he said, “What do you call this—stuff, my dear count?”
“It is Soup à la Julien to be sure, and very good.”
“Soup à la Julien!” exclaimed Tousky Wousky, “I should call it soup à la swill-pail. I never tasted anything half so bad. Here, garçon! take this plate away, and tell the cook I shall have him indicted for an attempt to poison.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
The dinner was a good dinner, and Tousky Wousky was suffered to finish the remainder of it in peace. Just before the dessert was introduced, Count Deflamzi was called out by a servant, and begging to be excused for a few minutes, quitted the apartment. He had not been gone long when the same servant re-entered and informed Tousky Wousky, that the cook, to whom he had sent the message touching the soup, desired to speak with him.
“Show him in! show him in!” exclaimed several voices. “Ten to one, he means to challenge you, Tousky Wousky, for abusing his soup. Ha! ha! ha!”
Tousky Wousky began to look pale, but tried to laugh it off, and said, “Nonsense! I can’t see the fellow now. Tell him to call on me at my hotel.”
“That won’t do. Show him in, garçon, show him in!” cried Tom Cawley, who was Allen’s principal ally in the plot.
Here the cook burst into the room. He had on a white cap and a white apron. A white apron was thrown over his shoulder, and his hands were white with flour.
“Alphonse!” exclaimed Tousky Wousky, starting up with dismay, as he gazed on the once familiar apparition.
“Count Deflamzi!” ejaculated Mrs. Remnant. “This is indeed eccentric.”
“No more Count Deflamzi, madame, than this is Count Tousky, but plain Alphonse Fricandeau, gastronomical artist, or in vulgar language, cook, from Paris.”
“What! isn’t he a count?”
“No, madame; he is a cook!”
“A cook! my salts, Mr. Remnant! Quick, you stupid man!”
“I appeal to the company,” said Tousky Wousky, recovering himself, “Madame, this is a conspiracy. I can produce letters from the first noblemen in London—”
“The company shall soon be satisfied on that point,” said Monsieur Fricandeau. “Eugene, request the attendance of Lord Morvale.”
At the sound of this name, Tousky Wousky sank into his chair quite unmanned. Lord Morvale soon entered, and after bowing to the rest of the company, turned to Tousky Wousky, and said, “At your old tricks, Philippe! Rogue! Have I found you at last?”
“Count Tousky Wousky a rogue! What does it all mean?” asked old Mr. Remnant, who could not well comprehend what was going on.
Lord Morvale turned to the company, and said, “This fellow, ladies and gentlemen, who calls himself Count Tousky Wousky, was for two years chief cook in my establishment, and I will do him the justice to say that his talents in that vocation are truly respectable. But it seems that he had a soul above pans and pâtés, and one day I found that he had broken open my desk, taken from it some money and letters, and decamped. I afterwards met him in Paris, but he was so skilfully disguised that I did not recognize him; and it was not till Monsieur Fricandeau apprised me that Count Tousky Wousky was my old cook in a new character, that I suspected the fact.”
This revelation was listened to without surprise by all except Mr. and Mrs. Remnant. No better proof of its truth was needed than Tousky Wousky’s abject appearance. Tom Cawley took Lord Morvale aside and whispered a few words in his ear, after which his Lordship came forward, and addressed Mr. and Mrs. Remnant as follows; “Any legal process against this fellow would from recent events be calculated to make public certain domestic occurrences in your family, the discussion of which might prove annoying. I will, therefore, consent to refrain from molesting him so you will consent to secure your daughter’s happiness by giving her to the man of her choice, and one who appears to be every way worthy of her preference. I allude to Mr. Allen, and I take this opportunity of inviting myself to his wedding.”
The idea of having a live lord present at the nuptials of her daughter, amply consoled Mrs. Remnant for the loss of Tousky Wousky as a son-in-law. It was not long before her visions were fulfilled. Lord Morvale gave away the bride; and a proud day it was for the race of the Remnants when that memorable event took place.
As for Count Tousky Wousky, I take this opportunity of cautioning the public against him. He is still prowling about the country under assumed names, and intends figuring at our principal watering places before the summer is over. He is quite confident that he will ultimately succeed in picking up a Yankee heiress, and I should not be surprised any day to hear of the fulfilment of his designs. The recent example of Captain S—— has inspired him with new hopes.
It is Tousky Wousky’s intention to visit Portland while the warm weather lasts. To my certain knowledge he carries letters from his near kinsman, General Count Bratish Eliovitch, to my gifted and open-hearted friend, John Neal. Before Mr. Neal lends him his pocket-book and his protection, I beg that he will peruse a letter in regard to the character of the count’s endorser, from our minister at Paris, Mr. Cass, to Mr. Fairfield, Governor of Maine.
FAREWELL TO A FASHIONABLE ACQUAINTANCE.
———
BY S. G. GOODRICH.
———
There is a smile which beams with light,
When all around is flush and fair,
Yet turns to scorn when Sorrow’s night
Wraps its lorn victim in despair.
That smile is like the illusive ray
The false, fictitious diamond gives;
Reflecting back the beams of day;
In borrowed light it only lives.
That smile is like the rifled rose,
That on a syren’s breast doth shine;
Oh! who would weep to part with those
Whose smiles are such as this of thine!
And these are friends who call one “dear,”
When Fortune favors all one’s wishes;
Yet when the goddess changes—sneer,
And pick one’s character to pieces.
Poor moths that round the taper wheel—
Addled in light—in darkness fled—
Too poor to crush—too false to feel—
Beneath our scorn—to memory dead!
Yet they may teach a lesson stern—
In the deep caverns of the mind,
To build our castle home, and spurn
The heartless things we leave behind.
Unwept the false, unwept the fair—
To fashion, folly, falsehood, tied—
With truth and love, we now may share
The bliss that flattery denied.
——
Lady, farewell! no more we meet,
My cream, my strawberries, all are banished;
Thy flatteries too are fled, thy sweet,
Fond speeches with my ices vanished.
——
Forgive me if I mourn thee not,
For at a price I know thee willing;
Such souls as thine, fair dame, are bought,
Like cakes and custards, by the shilling.
’Tis thus with thee, ’tis thus with all,
That throng gay Fashion’s trickish mart;
Each has his price, and, great or small,
Cash is the measure of the heart.
Seest thou yon proud and peerless belle,
That saunters through the gay cotillion,
With eyes that speak of heaven? Well—
She’s just knocked down at half a million.
There is the purchaser—a poor,
Mean, craven thing—whose merit lies
In this, his father left him store
Of stocks; and he hath bought those eyes!
Yon maiden, whirling in the waltz—
A salamander that doth live
Unscathed in fire—hath too her faults,
But yet her price is—what you’ll give.
And this is Fashion’s magic ring
So envied, sought—where yet the heart,
Stript of its guises, is a thing
That makes poor, simple Virtue start.
So false within, without so fair.
’Twas here, sweet dame, that first I met thee,
’Tis meet that I should leave thee where
Thou art at home—and thus, forget thee!
SONG.
———
BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON.
———
When poor in all but troth and love,
I clasped thee to this beating heart
And vowed for wealth and fame to rove,
That we might meet no more to part.
Years have gone by—long weary years—
Of toil to win the comfort now,
Of ardent hopes—of sick’ning fears—
And Wealth is mine! but where art thou?
Fame’s dazzling dream for thy dear sake
Rose brighter than before to me;
I clung to all I deem’d could make
This burning heart more worthy thee!
Years have gone by—the laurel droops
In mock’ry o’er my cheerless brow;
A conquer’d world before me stoops,
And Fame is mine! but where art thou?
In life’s first hours, despised and lone,
I wander’d through the busy crowd,
But now that life’s best hopes are gone,
They greet with smiles and murmurs loud.
Oh! for thy voice—that happy voice—
To breathe its joyous welcome now!
Wealth, Fame, and all that should rejoice,
To me are vain, for where art thou?
THE JOHNSONS.
———
BY ANN S. STEPHENS.
———
It was a deceitful thing, but my day of trouble dawned with a promise of uncommon enjoyment. It was our weekly holiday, and I looked from my bed-chamber window—merry as a bird, and peculiarly alive to the beauties of a bright June morning. The sky was warm, blue and cloudless, the flowers full of sweetness and lying with the dew upon them in its utmost abundance. The birds were all brimful of melody and the very gravel walk looked cool and clean with a shower that had swept over it during the night.
The sun was just up and we were ready with our bonnets on—my school-mate and I—for Colonel M. had promised us a ride and his phaeton was at the door.
“Come—come, are you ready,” exclaimed Maria, bounding into my room with her hat on one side—for she had been taking a run after her mamma’s dog, Pink, in the garden, and Pink had led her a race through a raspberry thicket which made a change of slippers necessary, and had displaced her bonnet as I have said.
“Come, Sophy, come, Tom has driven to the door—papa is in the hall and the horses are as restless as two wild eagles—nonsense, don’t take that great red shawl, the morning is beautiful—Come—”
Before Maria finished speaking she had run down stairs, through the hall, and stood on the door step looking back impatiently for myself and her father, who was very tranquilly drawing on his gloves as he chatted to his wife through a door of the parlor where she still lingered by the breakfast table.
There is no enjoyment like riding, whether on horseback or in a carriage, providing your equipage be in good taste, your companions agreeable and the day fine. We were fortunate in all these. There was not a lighter or more beautiful phaeton in New Haven than that of Colonel M., and his horses—you never saw such animals in harness!—their jetty coats, arched necks and gazelle-like eyes were the very perfection of brute beauty. Never were creatures more perfectly trained. The play of their delicate hoofs was like the dancing of a fine girl, and they obeyed the slightest motion of the rein to a marvel.
As to my companions, they were unexceptionable, as the old ladies say; Maria was a lovely creature, not decidedly handsome, but good and delicate, with an eye like a wet violet. Her father was just the kind of man to give consequence to a brace of happy girls in their teens—not young enough to be mistaken for a brother or lover, nor old enough to check our mirth with wise saws and sharp reprimands—he was a careless, good-hearted man, as the world goes, in the prime of his good looks, with his black hair just beginning to be threaded with silver and the calm dignity of a gentleman fitting him like a garment. He always preferred the society of persons younger than himself, and encouraged us in an outbreak of mirth or mischief which made him one of the most pleasant protectors in the world, though, if the truth must be told, a serenade or so by two very interesting students of the Sophomore class, who played the guitar and flute with exceeding sweetness, and who had tortured those instruments a full hour the previous night, while looking unutterable things at our chamber windows, had just given us a first idea that gray hairs might be dispensed with, and the companion of a ride quite as agreeable. Nay, we had that very morning, before Pink deluded Maria into the garden, consulted about the possibility of dislodging the colonel from his seat in the phaeton in favor of the flute amateur, for my friend very thoughtfully observed that she was certain the interesting youth would be delighted to drive us out—if we could find the carriage, for, poor fellows, they never had much credit at the livery stables—but Colonel M. had something of Lady Gay Spanker’s disposition, he liked to “keep the ribbons,” and Maria, with all her boldness, had not courage to desire him to resign them to younger hands. I must say that the colonel—though her father—was a noble looking figure in an open carriage. There was not a better dressed man about town—his black coat, of the finest cloth, satin vest and plaited ruffles, were the perfection of good taste, and his driving would have made the aforesaid Lady Gay half crazy with envy; he would have scorned a horse that could not take his ten miles an hour, and without a quickened breath, too. Colonel M. had his imperfections and was a little overbearing and aristocratic in his habits, but he was a kind man and loved his wife, child, and horses—or rather his horses, child and wife, with a degree of affection which overbalanced a thousand such faults; he was proud of his house, of his gardens and hot-houses, but prouder of his stables, and would have been inclined to fox hunting if such a thing had ever been heard of in dear old Connecticut. He was very kind also to a certain wayward, idle, teasing young school girl, who shall be nameless, but who has many a pleasant and grateful memory connected with his residence.
I had forgotten—we were seated and the horses pawing the ground, impatient to be off. Black Tom, who had been patting their necks, withdrew his hold on the bits and away we went. It was like riding in a railroad car, so swiftly the splendid animals cleared the ground, with the sun glistening on their black coats and over the silver studded harness as they dashed onward. It was indeed a glorious morning, and to ride through the streets of New Haven at sunrise is like dashing through the gravel walks of a garden, for there is scarcely a dwelling which is not surrounded by a little wilderness of trees and shrubbery. The breath of a thousand flowering thickets was abroad, the sun lay twinkling amid their foliage, and the dewy grass with the shadows sleeping upon it looked so cool and silent, one longed to take a volume of Wordsworth and dream away the morning there—we dashed forward to the college grounds, by the Tontine and into Elm street, where we drove at a foot pace to enjoy the shade of the tall elms where they interlace, canopying the whole street with the stirring foliage, and weaving a magnificent arch through which the sunshine came flickering with broken and unsteady light. How deliciously cool it was with the dew still bathing the bright leaves and the long branches waving like green banners over us!
The colleges, too, with their extensive common formed a beautiful picture, the noble buildings threw their deep shadows on the grass, while here and there a group of young men—poets and statesmen of the future—were grouped picturesquely beneath the old trees—some chatting and laughing merrily, with neglected books lying at their feet, and others sitting apart poring over some open volume, while the pure breath of morning came and softly turned the leaves for them. As we drove by a party sitting beneath a tree close by the paling, Maria stole her hand round to mine, and with a nod toward the group and a roguish dimple in her cheek, gave me to understand that our serenaders were of the party. They saw us, and instantly there was a sly flourishing of white cambric handkerchiefs and—it was not our fault, we tried to look the other way—a superlative waste of kisses wafted toward us from hands which had discoursed such sweet music beneath our windows the night before. When we looked back on turning the corner—for of course we were anxious that the young gentlemen should not be too demonstrative—they had moved to another side of the tree and stood leaning against it in very graceful attitudes, gazing after our phaeton from the shadows of their Leghorn hats. The hats were lifted, the white cambric began to flutter again—our horses sprang forward, and on we dashed over the Hotchkisstown road. We stopped at that gem of a village, a pretty cluster of houses nestled under the shelving cliffs of East Rock. We clambered up the mountain, searched over its broken and picturesque features, and gazed down on the Arcadian scenery below with a delight which I can never forget; the town lying amid its forest of trees, the glittering Sound, the line of Long Island stretching along the horizon, and the green meadows and pretty village at our feet, lay within our glance, and human eye never dwelt upon a scene more lovely.
It was late in the morning when we drove through the town again—our horses in a foam—our cheeks glowing with exercise and our laps full of wild blossoms.
“Oh, mamma, we have had a delightful drive,” exclaimed Maria, as she sprang upon the door step, scattering a shower of wild lilies over the pavement in her haste to leave the phaeton. “Take care, Sophia, take care, or you will tread on my flowers,” and with this careless speech she ran up the steps happy and cheerful as a summer bird. I was about to follow her when Mrs. M. detained me long enough to say that some persons from S——, the town which contained my own loved home, were waiting for me in the hall.
For the first time in my life I had spent three months from my father’s hearth-stone, and could have welcomed the dog who had once passed the threshold of my home, been patted by my sisters, or who had looked into the face of my mother—as an old friend. Without staying to inquire who my visiters could be, I went eagerly forward, my hand half extended in welcome, and with all the dear feelings of home stirring about my heart. It certainly was a damper—the sight of that lean gossiping little man, our town miller—with the marks of his occupation whitening his hatband, lying in the seams of his coat, and marking the wrinkles in his boots—a personage who had ground some fifty bushels of wheat for my father, during his lifetime, but with whom I had never known the honor of exchanging a dozen consecutive words on that or any other subject. There he sat, very diminutive and exceedingly perpendicular on one of the hall chairs, with his feet drawn under him, and his large bell-crowned hat standing on the carpet by his side. Planted against the wall, and on a direct file with himself, sat his better half, one of the most superlatively silly and talkative patterns of humanity that I have ever been in contact with. In order to be a little genteel—as she called it—Mrs. Johnson had honored the visit with her best gown, a blazing calico with an immense pattern running over it, which, with a Leghorn bonnet lined with pink and trimmed with blue, white silk gloves much too small for her hands, and morocco shoes ready to burst with the wealth of feet they contained, composed the tout ensemble, which few persons could have looked upon once without feeling particularly desirous for a second survey. The appearance of Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson was vulgar enough in all conscience without the aid of their hopeful progeny, in the shape of two little Johnsons, with freckled faces and sun-burnt locks, who sat by the side of their respectable mamma, in jackets of blue cotton, striped trowsers much too short, and with their dear little feet perched on the chair-rounds squeezing their two unfortunate wool hats between their knees and gazing with open mouths through the drawing-room door. It certainly was an exquisite group for the halls of an aristocratic and fastidious man like Colonel M.; I dared not look toward him as he stood giving some directions to Tom, but went forward with an uncomfortable suspicion that the negro was exhibiting rather more of his teeth than was exactly necessary in his master’s presence.
The fear of ridicule was strong in my heart, but other and more powerful feelings were beating there. My visiters were vulgar but honest people, and I could not treat them coldly while the sweet impulses and affectionate associations their coming had given rise to were swarming in my bosom. They might be rude, but had they not lately trod the places of my childhood? Their faces were coarse and inanimate, but they were familiar ones, and as such I welcomed them; for they brought to my heart sweet thoughts of a happy home. I went forward and shook hands with them all, notwithstanding a glimpse I caught of Maria as she paused on the stairs, her roguish eyes absolutely laughing with merriment as she witnessed the scene.
An hour went by, and the Johnsons were still sitting in Colonel M.’s hall. I had gained all the information regarding my friends which they could communicate. It was drawing near the dinner hour, and, in truth, I had become exceedingly anxious for my visiters to depart. But there sat Mrs. Johnson emitting a continued current of very small talk about her currant bushes, her luck in making soap, and the very distressing mortality that had existed among her chickens—she became pathetic on this subject—six of her most promising fledglings had perished under an old cart during a thunder-storm, and as many goslings had been dragged lifeless from her husband’s mill-dam, where they had insisted upon swimming before they were sufficiently fledged. The account was very touching; peculiarly so from a solemn moral which Mrs. J. contrived to deduct from the sad and untimely fate of her poultry—which moral, according to the best of my memory, was, that if the chickens had obeyed their mother and kept under the parent wing, the rain had not killed them, and if the goslings had not put forth their swimming propensities too early, they might, that blessed moment, have been enjoying the coolness of the mill-dam in all the downy majesty of half-grown geese. Mrs. Johnson stopped the hundredth part of a second to take breath and branched off into a dissertation on the evils of disobedience in general, and the forwardness and docility of her two boys in particular. Then, drawing all her interesting topics to a focus, she took boys, geese, chickens, currant bushes, &c., &c., and bore them rapidly onward in the stream of her inveterate loquacity. One might as well have attempted to pour back the waters rushing from her husband’s mill-dam, when the flood-gates were up, as to check the motion of her unmanageable tongue. The clatter of his whole flour establishment must have been a poetical sound compared to the incessant din of meaningless words that rolled from it. Another good hour passed away, and the volubility of that tongue was increasing, while my politeness and patience, it must be owned, were decreasing in an exact ratio.
Maria had dressed for dinner, and I caught a glimpse of her bright face peeping roguishly over the banisters. Mrs. M. came into the hall, looked gravely toward us, and walked into the garden with a step rather more dignified than usual.
“Dear me, is that the lady you are staying with?” said Mrs. Johnson, cutting short the thread of her discourse, “how sorry I am that I didn’t ask her how she did, she must think we country people hav’n’t got no bringing up.”
Without replying to Mrs. Johnson, I seized the opportunity to inquire at what house they stayed, and innocently proposed calling on them after dinner.
“Oh,” said the little man, with a most insinuating smile, “we calculate to put up with you. Didn’t think we were the kind o’ people to slight old friends—ha?”
“With me—old friends!” I was thunderstruck, and replied, I fear with some lack of politeness, that Colonel M. did not keep a hotel.
“Wal, I guess I knowd that afore, but I’d jist as lives pay him my money as any body else.”
This was too much—I cast a furtive look at the banister; Maria’s handkerchief was at her mouth, and her face sparkled all over with suppressed mirth. Before I could answer Mr. Johnson’s proposition, Colonel M. came into the ball, and the modest little gentleman very coolly informed him of the high honor intended his house.
Colonel M. glanced at my burning face—made his most solemnly polite bow, and informed my tormentor that he should entertain any visiter of mine with great pleasure.
I was about to disclaim all Mr. Johnson’s pretensions to hospitality, backed by an acquaintance with myself, when he interrupted me with—
“Wal, that’s jest what I was a saying to my woman here as we came along. Wife, says I, never put up to a tavern when you can go any where else. I’d jest as lives pay my money to a private as to a tavern-keeper; they’re expensive fellers and allers grumble if one brings his own horse provender.”
The colonel stared at him a moment, then coldly saying “he was very welcome,” passed on.
“What a polite gentleman the colonel is!” ejaculated the little miller, rubbing his hands together as if he had been kneading a batch of his own flour, and turning triumphantly to his wife, who looked as pleased as if she had just heard of the resuscitation of her six lamented goslings, chickens inclusive.
“Come now,” she said, jumping up and tying the strings of her bonnet, “let’s go down to the salt water and eat our dinner on the grass. Run up and get your things, Miss Sophy—now come to think on it, I s’pose it wouldn’t be the genteel thing if we didn’t ask the colonel and his wife and that young girl that just come in with you—but the wagon is not large enough to hold us all without husband there can find a board to put along the front for an extra seat.”
I heard a sound of smothered laughter from the stairs, and hastened to relieve Mrs. Johnson from her dilemma, by declining her invitation for myself, while I informed her that Colonel M. expected company, and I was certain could not benefit by her politeness.
“Wal, then,” said Mr. Johnson, setting down his bell-crowned hat—“It don’t make much difference whether we eat our dinner here or on the sea-side. So, if Miss Sophy and the rest on ’em can’t go, s’posing we give it up and go to the museum.”
This plan was less endurable than the other. I knew that company would drop in after dinner, and the very thought of introducing Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson, with both the little Johnsons, to my friends was enough to drive me into the salt water, as they called it, if those interesting persons had given me no other alternative. And then to be dragged to the museum with them! I accepted the sea-side dinner in a fit of desperation, and ran up stairs to get ready, half angry with the droll face which Maria made up for my benefit as I passed her in the upper hall.
I put on a calash, folded a large shawl about me, and, with a parasol in my hand, was descending the stairs when I heard Mr. J. observe to his wife that he had felt pretty sure of managing affairs all the time, and that he was ready to bet any thing Colonel M. wouldn’t charge for what little trouble they should be. Mrs. Johnson pinched his arm unmercifully when I appeared in sight, which gentle admonition broke off his calculation of expenses and sent him in search of his equipage. He returned with a rickety one-horse wagon—a rusty harness, tied by pieces of rope in sundry places, which covered an old chesnut horse, whose organs of starvation were most astonishingly developed over his whole body. Into this crazy vehicle Mr. Johnson handed us, with a ludicrous attempt at gallantry which made the old horse turn his head with a rueful look to see what his master could be about. The wagon contained but one springless seat, and where we should find accommodations for five persons was a subject of mystery to me. I however quietly took my portion of the seat; Mrs. Johnson, whose dimensions required rather more than half, placed herself by my side, her husband grasped the reins and crowded his diminutive proportions between us, while the dear little boys stood up behind and held by the back of our seat. Mr. Johnson gave his reins a jerk and flourished a whip—with a very short and white hickory handle, a long lash, and a thong of twisted leather fastened on for a snapper—with peculiar grace over the drooping head of our steed. The poor animal gathered up his limbs and walked down the street, dragging us after him, with great majesty and decorum. We must have been a magnificent exhibition to the pedestrians as we passed down State street, Mr. Johnson shaking the reins and cheruping the poor horse along—his wife exclaiming at every thing she saw, and those interesting boys standing behind us very upright, with their wool hats set far back on their heads, and they pointing and staring about as only very young gentlemen from the country can stare and point, while I, poor victim, sat crouching behind Mr. J., my calash drawn to its utmost extension over my face, and my parasol directed with a reference to the side-walk rather than to the sun. I was young, sensitive, and perhaps a little too keenly alive to the ridiculous, and if I did not feel exactly like a criminal going to execution, I did feel as if some old lady’s fruit stall had been robbed and I was the suspected person.
When about three miles from town, we left our equipage, whose rattle had given me a headache, and, after walking along the shore awhile, Mrs. J. selected a spot of fresh grass, shaded by a clump of junipers, where she commenced preparations for dinner. First, with the assistance of her two boys, she dragged forth a basket that had been stowed away under the wagon seat—then a table-cloth, white as a snow drift, was spread on the grass—next appeared sundry bottles of cider and currant wine, with cakes of various kinds and dimensions, but mostly spiced with caraway seed. To these were added a cold tongue, a loaf of exquisite bread, a piece of cheese, a cup of butter covered with a cool cabbage leaf, and, last of all, a large chicken-pie, its edge pinched into regular scollops by Mrs. Johnson’s two thumbs, and the centre ornamented by the striking resemblance of a broken leaf, cut by the same ingenious artist in the original paste.
Truly a day is like a human life, seldom all clouds or entire sunshine. The most gloomy is not all darkness, nor the most happy all light. When the remembrance of that sea-side dinner, under the juniper bushes, comes over me, I must acknowledge that my day of tribulation—with all its provoking incidents and petty vexations—had its hour of respite, if not of enjoyment. There we sat upon the grass in a refreshing shade, with nobody to look on as we cut the tender crust of that pie, while the cider and the currant wine sparkled in the two glasses which we circulated very promiscuously from lip to lip, while the cool wind came sweeping over us from the water, and the sunshine, that else had been too powerful, played and glittered every where about. A few yards from our feet the foam-crested waves swept the beach with their dash of perpetual music. The Sound, studded by a hundred snowy sails, lay out-stretched before us. Far on our right spread an extensive plain, with cattle grazing peacefully over it, and here and there a dwelling or a cluster of trees flinging their shadows on the grass. On our left was the town, with its houses rising, like palaces of snow, among the overhanging trees; its taper steeples pencilled in regular lines against the sky, and a picturesque extremity of the Green Mountains looming in the distance.
It cannot be denied that I rather enjoyed that dinner under the juniper bushes, and was not half so much shocked by the jocund conversation and merry laughter of my companions as became the dignity of a young lady whose “Lines to a Rose-bud” had been extensively copied through several remote papers of the Union, and who had been twice serenaded by her own words, set to most excruciating music, but I hope the refined reader will excuse my fault. It happened several years ago, and I am to this day a little inclined to be social with good-natured people, even those who are not particularly literary or intelligent. They do not expect you to talk books because you write them—never torment you with a discussion of “woman’s rights,” equality of the sexes, and like popular absurdities—or force you into a detestation of all books with quotations, which you would rejoice to think were “unwritten music.”
The clocks were striking four when we drove into town again, much as we had left it except the basket of fragments under our seat. When we reached Colonel M’s. door there was a sound of voices in the drawing-room, and I knew that company was there. I entered the hall, and with a palpitating heart persuaded Mrs. Johnson to accompany me to my chamber, leaving her husband to take care of himself, and devoutly hoping that he would find his way into the garden, or stables, or any where except the drawing-room.
I entered my chamber resolved to entertain Mrs. Johnson so pleasantly that she would be content to remain there. I opened the window and pointed out one of the most lovely prospects that eye ever dwelt upon, but she was busy with the pink bows and cotton lace border of her cap, and preferred the reflection of her own stout figure in the looking-glass to any the open sash could afford. When her toilet was finished, I was even preposterous enough to offer a book, but, after satisfying herself that it contained no pictures, she laid it down and walked toward the door. As a last resource, I flung open my wardrobe, as if by accident, and that had its effect; she came back with the avidity of a great child, handled every article, and was very particular to inquire the price of each garment, and the number of yards it contained. How I wished that Queen Elizabeth had but left me heiress to her nine hundred dresses. Had she been so thoughtful, it is highly probable that Mrs. Johnson would have contented herself in my room till morning; but, alas! my wardrobe was only extensive enough to detain her half an hour, and when that failed she grew stubborn and insisted on going down.
I followed Mrs. J. down stairs and into the drawing-room with the resolution of a martyr. She paused at the door, dropped three sublime curtsies, put on one of her superlatively silly smiles, and entered, with a little mincing step and her cap ribands all in a flutter. Had I been called upon to select the five persons whom I should have been most unwilling to meet in my irksome predicament, it would have been the two beautiful girls and three highly bred students of the law-school whom I found in a group near the centre table. Maria was with them, but looking almost ill-tempered with annoyance. When she saw Mrs. Johnson, the crimson that burned on her usually pale cheek spread over her face and neck, while, spite of shame and anger, her mouth dimpled almost to a laugh as that lady performed her curtsies at the door. Maria gave one glance of comic distress at my face, which was burning till it pained me, and another toward the farther extremity of the room. There was Mr. Johnson perched on a music stool, and fingering the keys of a piana, as he called Maria’s superb rose-wood instrument, and the feet of those little Johnsons dangled from two of the chairs near by: there, at my right hand, was Mrs. Johnson, radiant as a sunflower, and disposed to make herself peculiarly fascinating and agreeable to our visiters. She informed the law students that her husband was a great musicianer, that he led the singing in the Methodist meeting-house at home, every other Sunday, when the ministers came to preach, and that her two boys gave strong indications of musical genius which had almost induced Mr. Johnson to patronize their village singing-school. While in the midst of this eloquence, her eye was caught by a rich scarf worn by one of our lady visiters, so changing the subject she began to express her admiration, and, after taking an end of the scarf in her hands and minutely examining the pattern, she inquired the price of its fair owner, and called her husband to say if he could not afford one like it for her.
There was a roguish look in the lady’s eye, but she politely informed Mrs. J. where the scarf was purchased, and, being too well bred to laugh in our faces, the party took their leave. We breathed freely once more; but Maria and I had scarcely exchanged glances of congratulation for their absence, when another party was announced. To be mortified thus a second time was beyond endurance, and while Maria stepped forward to close the folding doors on Mr. Johnson and his musical performance, I turned in very desperation to his better half and proposed to accompany her in a walk about the city. Most earnestly did I entreat her to exchange that fine bonnet and orange-colored silk shawl for a cottage and merino of my own; but no, Mrs. J. clung to her tri-colors tenaciously as a Frenchman, so investing myself in the rejected articles we sallied forth.
As we were turning a corner into Chapel-street, I looked back and lo, the two boys walking behind us, lovingly as the Siamese twins. This reminded Mrs. Johnson that she had promised them some candy, so I was forced into a confectioner’s shop that the young gentlemen might be gratified. The candy was purchased and a pound of raisins called for. While the man was weighing them, she called out,
“Stop a minute, while I see if I’ve got change enough for ’em,” and sitting down on a keg she took out a large green worsted purse with deliberate ostentation, and untied a quantity of silver and copper cents into her lap. Being satisfied with this display of her wealth, she gave the man permission to proceed. I had suffered so much that day that the jeering smile of that candy-man went for nothing.
On leaving the candy shop I allowed my tormentor to choose her own direction, which, as my evil stars would have it, led directly before the Tontine, and there, upon the steps, stood the two young gentlemen who had serenaded Maria and myself only the night before, and whom we had seen that morning on the college grounds. They recognized me and bowed, Mrs. Johnson instantly appropriated the compliment, paused, faced about and returned their salutations with a curtsey for each, while she scolded the boys for not having “manners enough to make their bows when gentlemen noticed them.” The urchins took off their wool hats and did make their bows. My serenaders of the Sophomore class could not withstand this, and though their faces were turned away, I had a delightful consciousness that they were ready to die with suppressed laughter as I urged my companion down the street.
A short distance below the Tontine stands a most splendid mansion, perhaps, at that time, the most costly one in the city. Two of my school mates resided there and I was very anxious to pass without being observed, but just as we came opposite the front windows which opened to the ground, Mrs. Johnson made a dead halt, and pointing to the house, called out, “Come here, boys, and see what a sight o’ windows this ere house has got.”
The little Johnsons had lingered behind, but they ran up and obeyed their mother’s summons, by planting themselves directly before us, and the whole group took another survey of the building. I looked up, the blinds of a chamber were gently parted and I caught a glimpse of two sweet, familiar faces looking down upon our interesting party. “They are staring at us, do walk on!” I whispered in a perfect agony.
Mrs. Johnson paid no attention, she was looking earnestly down the street, I apprehensively followed the direction of her gaze. The two Sophomore students were coming up the opposite side walk laughing immoderately, a piece of ill breeding which they endeavored to check when their eyes met mine, but all in vain. Their eyes laughed in spite of the violence put upon the lips. I could endure it no longer but tore my arm from the tenacious grasp of my tormentor, turned the first corner and hastened home.
When Mrs. Johnson returned she had forgotten my rudeness in her delight at the attentions paid her by the students. “They had talked and laughed together a full half hour,” she said, “and were so perlite.”
“What did you talk about?” I inquired with uncomfortable foreboding.
“Why, I believe it was purty much about you, after all.”
“Me?” said I, faintly.
“Yes, they asked how long we’d been acquainted, so, of course, I told them what old friends we were—kind of relations.”
The last drop was flung in the bowl—and it overflowed—I said I was ill—had a headache—and running to my room, locked myself in.
I never had courage to ask Maria what occurred after my exit. But the next morning I arose very early, threw open the blinds and looked out. The day was breaking, like an angel’s smile, in the east, dividing the gray mist with a line of radiance, and embroidering the horizon with its delicate golden threads. The fresh air came up from an opposite garden rich with fragrance. The flowers bent their wet heads as it came with a gentle breath and charmed the odor from their cups; the grass had not yet flung off its night jewelry, and all around was still and silent as the heart of a wilderness—no, there was one sound not so musical as it might have been, but still the most welcome that ever fell on my ear. It was the rattle of Mr. Johnson’s wagon as it came lumbering up to the front door. And the most gratifying sight of that lovely morning was the old chesnut horse stalking down the street, and dragging behind him Mr. Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and both the little Johnsons.
THE STUDENT’S DREAM OF FAME.
———
BY ROBERT MORRIS.
———
’Tis midnight’s solemn hour! And mark—yon room
Narrow, and dimly lit. The thicken’d gloom
Of deepest night is scarcely chased away,
The lamp so small—so thin its feeble ray!
Alas! poor student! What a fate is thine!
Within thy bosom burns a ray divine,
A fire has to thy spirit’s cell been given,
Alive with flame caught from the founts of Heaven!
Genius is thine, and like a worshipper
Of some far world, or glory beaming star.
Night after night, thou toilest slowly on,
Each thought refining—each comparison,
And phrase, and figure, weighing well and long,
And thus thy life-blood pouring with thy song!
How little reck we of the toil of mind!
The inward strain some sparkling thought to find—
The hollow cheek—the fever-thrilling brain—
And worse than all, when venal is the strain,
And the poor author toils alone for gain!
Not such, pale wooer of the solemn night,
Not such thy fate. The far and dazzling light
That leads thee on, is that which Death nor Time
Can wholly quench—the towering light sublime,
That burns in Fame’s high temple—the strong fire
That flashed when Milton struck his mighty lyre!
The radiant Future dawns upon thy sight,
And all thy being maddens with delight—
The dust that forms thy fragile body now,
May shrink and fade, as melts the early snow—
And where the blue veins course throughout thy form,
The things of death may revel with the worm—
But oh! wild vision—thought o’er mastering death,
Thy name shall brighten with thy parting breath—
Beings as yet unborn shall give thee praise—
And Glory’s hand shall bind thy brow with bays!
For this—for this—thine hours are given to toil,
For this alone thou burn’st the midnight oil—
Thou see’st the Future radiant with thy name,
And yield’st thy life in sacrifice for Fame!
THE ZANONI GALLOP.
COMPOSED FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
The Fountain and other Poems. By William C. Bryant. One vol. 12mo. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1842.
It will give pleasure to the lovers of elegant literature to learn that Mr. Bryant has prepared a second volume of poems. Many, if not all of them, have before appeared in the magazines; but the book will not be welcomed the less warmly for that reason. Indeed, no one reads a poem by this author without desiring to possess it in the most agreeable and permanent form. His admirers will be gratified, therefore, that he has so far overcome his singular feeling of modesty as to make a collection of his scattered gems, and present them in a casket to the public.
So much has been said of the character of Bryant’s genius that we have no disposition to enter upon that subject now; his various and high excellencies have been pretty generally recognized; indeed, more universally than those of any other living poet; and he himself—even if his literary vanity is a thousand times as great as we believe it to be—and his most ardent admirers, must be satisfied with the feeling entertained by the public toward him. They must be satisfied, because that feeling is in the highest degree friendly. As to ourselves, we are conscious that our estimation of him has been constantly undergoing a change. We have been deepening and enlarging the grounds of our admiration. The more we have read, the more we have reflected upon his poems, the stronger have grown our convictions of his preëminent merit. Nor are we alone in this experience. We remember well the remark of a friend, in whose critical discernment we are accustomed to place considerable reliance, and who, being a foreigner, is not likely to have been led away by that fondness for over praise which is said to mark the literary criticisms of the Americans—“I have been,” said he, “again reading your poet; and must confess that, as deeply as I felt his excellence before, I have never until now formed an adequate idea of the extent of his genius. Although I thought I had exhausted his depth, I find that new views of the most exalted and touching thought are continually opening upon me. I know not when I shall have done admiring.” We replied, and the observation is worth repeating, that this only showed the perfection of the poet’s art; for true art, like nature—indeed, being nature itself—is inexhaustible, and the more it is studied the greater and the richer are the resources which it discovers. A creation, whether it be of a world, a poem, or a picture, is an infinite work, and can be profitably contemplated year after year—each look revealing some new and remarkable trait.
There could be no better proof of the singular merits of Mr. Bryant’s poetry than the fact that men of every school of art, and of every variety of taste, agree in the acknowledgment of its claims. The disciples of Pope and of Wordsworth—those who profess to find the excellence of the poetic art only in its external forms, and those who look into the body of its thought and meaning—the lover of graceful rhythm and expression, and the admirer of profound reflection or passion—alike concur in the sentiment of admiration and respect for Bryant. We do not mean that it shall be inferred from this that no one is a poet who does not awaken this unanimity of feeling, for some of the greatest poets of the last century—Shelley for instance—are not even yet appreciated; but we mean that when this unanimity does exist it is a most unquestionable proof of merit. It is true, it does not always demonstrate the highest merit; yet it shows, more conclusively perhaps than anything, that the beauties of the author are of that unequivocal, obvious kind, which the child and the savage, the illiterate man and the philosopher, are alike capable of recognizing. It is an easy task, then, to point out the characteristics which have given the poet his general celebrity. One of the most striking is the complete mastery of language that he every where displays. If there were not many higher traits to be discovered, we should think he spent his whole time in casting his thoughts in the most beautiful form of expression. Precision, compactness, purity, elegance, and force, mark every line in an almost equal degree. It is this nice perception of the proprieties of language that gives such exquisite finish to his versification. Its melody is perfect.[[1]] Line follows line in liquid and beautiful harmony—yet all is as simple as the utterance of a child. There is no where swelling pomp or straining for effect. The terms, no less than the style and manner arise naturally out of the thought. When the subject is grave and imposing, the movement is slow and solemn; but when the theme is lighter, the measure becomes airy, elastic, and playful. Compare, as a proof of this, the impressive tread of “The Ages,” or “Thanatopsis,” in which the long line of buried nations and men file before us in all their silent majesty, with the graceful motion of “The Gladness of Nature” or the wild dance of “The Song of the Stars.”
Two things, however, above all others, distinguish the poetry of Mr. Bryant. The first is the fidelity with which it paints natural scenery, and the second, the pensive and profound, yet Christian philosophy which pervades its spirit. As we have remarked in another place, no man ever lived whose sensibility was more susceptible than Mr. Bryant’s. Not only is his eye open to Nature, but every fibre of his being seems to be tremblingly alive to its presence. His nerves, like the Æolian harp, the faintest breath of wind can make vibrate musically. The shapes and hues of natural objects, in all their infinite diversity, seem to be the constant companions of his thoughts. Hardly a leaf or a flower exists with which he is not familiar. From the spire of grass by the wayside to the huge oak in the mountains, from the violet in its secluded bed to the bright and boundless firmament, from the shy bird brooding in his silent nooks to the stars that weave their everlasting web of motion through the sky, all things of nature claim his loving friendship and care. Streams, and woods, and meadows, and rocks, and lakes mingle in his musings, and are the very staple of his imagination. They are
“His haunt, and main region of his song.”
If we turn over his title-pages, we shall find that about two thirds of his subjects are drawn from the various aspects or phenomena of external nature; while, by consulting the poems themselves, we shall see that so delicate is his eye, so perfect his command of language, and so exquisite his taste, that his descriptions have all the effect of a faithful but warmly colored picture. We say warmly colored, for with all his minuteness and accuracy in the delineation of nature, he possesses a wonderful power of imagination.
But it is not so much the graces of language or style, or the appropriateness or beauty of imagery, as the pensive but deep and manly philosophy, that incites our admiration of Mr. Bryant’s genius. It must strike every one, upon the most slight and cursory perusal of his poems, that he is a man of the most unquestionable good sense. The silent meditation of nature, in her more genial and subduing aspects, seems to have imparted to him the gentleness, truth, simplicity, and calmness that ever await upon her teachings. In the spirit of his own “Forest Hymn,” he seems often to have returned to the solitudes, to reassure his virtue, and thus, while meditating in “God’s first temples,” His milder majesty,
“to the beautiful order of His works
Seemed to conform the action of his life.”
Sweet affections, tenderness, patience, love, and, above all, trust in Nature and God, are the virtues that chiefly inspire his song. It is for this reason, that amidst his most striking and picturesque descriptions there is always something to soften and improve. Not the tempest, the earth-quake, or the torrent move him, but nature, in her gladness and smiles. With every phase of the external world he has connected some noble moral, or some beautiful religious or philosophical sentiment. Indeed, these are so many and so touching that it is equally a matter of amusement and instruction to trace them. Thus, in the deep slumber of the woodlands he finds an emblem of the inward peace that marks the life of virtue, twilight hues, “lingering after the bright sun has set,” are like the memory of good men gone; the perishing flowers of autumn recall those who “in their youthful beauty died;” the golden sunlight that follows the tempest anticipates the day when “the voice of war shall cease, and married nations dwell in harmony;” the unconscious flow of the rivulet shows how changeless nature is amid all her change; the flight of the lone bird amid the air tells of that power that in “the long way that we must tread alone, will guide our steps aright;” while “morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet,” indicate the spread of the light of that knowledge and justice which is destined to
“Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night.”
It must be confessed, however, speaking of the spirit of Mr. Bryant’s poetry, that many of his readers feel the absence of a deep and fervid interest in humanity. They have complained, and we think in some degree justly, that he exhibits too little of human passion. His mind, to use a distinction of the Germans, has been too objective, and not enough subjective; the forms and appearance of the outward world have absorbed his attention almost to the exclusion of the feelings and sentiments of the inward being. Not that he has been wholly wanting in sympathy for his race, for in the “Ages,” the “Old Man’s Funeral,” the “Living Lost,” the “Fairest of the Rural Maids,” and other of his poems, there are to be found passages of the most touching and subduing pathos; but that the truths of man’s existence; his experience on earth; the mysteries of his condition; the trials of his life; his deathless affections; his sublime hopes of a future state; and other topics of that character, have been neglected. They have wished that one who could discourse so truthfully and genially of stars, and skies, and flowers, and forests, should speak to them, out of the depths of his own nature, of that quickening principle which is more lovely in itself, of higher worth, and more lasting, than the whole outward world—the human soul. They have wished that he who has been able to interpret in such beautiful meaning the language of nature, would apply the same noble and accomplished skill to the interpretation of the heart. They would have him, like Wordsworth, to whom he is in this respect only second, sing more
“Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love and Hope—
And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;
Of blessed consolations in distress;
Of moral strength and intellectual power;
Of joy in widest commonalty spread;
Of the individual Mind that keeps her own
Inviolate retirement, subject them
To conscience only, and the law supreme
Of that Intelligence which governs all.”
We say that they would have him treat more frequently of such themes; let us add that their wishes are in a fair way of being gratified. We find, on comparing the present volume with Mr. Bryant’s former one, that his thoughts have already taken the direction to which we refer. Indeed, we have before remarked, that of late years his mind had been coming into closer contact with human sympathies. The last poem of his first volume—The Battle Field—so full of the highest truth, so inspiring and consolatory, may be ranked with the best lyrics of the language. In the volume before us, the larger number of poems are of a similar character. Where is there a finer or a loftier hymn than the following?
THE FUTURE LIFE.
How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.
Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?
In meadows fanned by heaven’s life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
The love that lived through all the stormy past
And meekly with my harsher nature bore
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.
For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,
Shrink and consume the heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath hath left its scar—that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.
Yet, though thou wear’st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this—
The wisdom which is love—till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?
Whoever can read this without feeling his affections expand, or his whole nature grow better, has less than the sensibility of humanity. We should be glad to present other pieces to our readers, of the same character;[[2]] and particularly to quote the noble poem entitled “The Antiquity of Freedom,” in which liberty is so nobly impersonated, but we have not room for further extracts, and can only indulge in one or two closing remarks. It appears to be a common regret with those who speak or write of Mr. Bryant, that he has not, as they express it, written a “great” poem. Be it observed, that by a great poem is here meant a long poem—a poem that in print will form a quarto! This kind of critic measures poems as the Dutch are said formerly to have gauged the merits of books—by their size. Perhaps of no author is there less reason for the lamentation that he has not written a great poem; for, in truth, he has written not only one, but nearly two dozen works of this description. He has written a series of lyrics, each perfect in itself, manifesting the highest excellence of that department of art, and destined to an existence as indestructible as the richest treasures of the English tongue. Indeed, we may safely say of him, that he has written a larger number of excellent poems than any other English author. So uniform is this excellence that it is difficult to make a selection between his various compositions. As some one has said of Shakspeare’s plays, the best one is that which you read last. The cause of this is, that Mr. Bryant writes as an artist. He does not, with the multitude of our poetasters, throw off lines as a patent printing press does newspapers, five thousand an hour. He feels like a true artist, and composes with the labor and spirit of one who is confident that his works will live.
| [1] | We should, perhaps, except in the “Green Mountain Boys” the badly sounding line near the close— “The towers and the lake are ours.” |
| [2] | The touching poem entitled The Maiden’s Sorrow, on another page of this number, illustrates what we have said above of Mr. Bryant’s most recent effusions. It was written by him for this Magazine since the preparation of his volume. |
The Official and other Papers of the late Maj. Gen. Alexander Hamilton: Compiled chiefly from the Originals in the possession of Mrs. Hamilton. Vol. I. 8vo. Pp. 496. New York and London: Wiley & Putnam. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart.
Every year, we believe, the name of Alexander Hamilton is becoming dearer to the American People. The prejudices occasioned by some of his unpopular and perhaps erroneous political opinions are passing away, and all men are beginning to look upon his great qualities and important services with candor, and consequent admiration and gratitude. The volume of his official and other papers before us was edited by the Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D. whose known familiarity with early American history fitted him well for the duty. It commences with some letters written while Hamilton was a clerk in a merchant’s counting-house in the island of St. Croix, in 1769. He was then but thirteen years old, and his correspondence at this early period is chiefly remarkable as showing that strong reliance on his own resources which was so well vindicated by the after fortunes of the man. The remainder of the book is made up of controversial essays in defence of the measures of the continental Congress and of the steps preparatory to the Revolution, and of his military and private correspondence down to the close of the year 1780. A few of the letters have before been published. Almost every one has read the admirable account of the arrest and fate of Andre, which he addressed to his friend Laurens. It is not surpassed in interest or pathos by any narrative of the circumstances, in prose or verse, by historian or novelist, that has appeared. General Hamilton was an accomplished gentleman and a brave soldier, but his fame, as “the second man of the republic,” rests on his achievements as a statesman, and the succeeding volume of these papers, to embrace the period from 1780 to 1793, will contain matters of far more general and profound interest than the one before us. The task of Dr. Hawks has been little more than that of compilation; he but arranged the papers in chronological order and added occasionally a note; thinking that the recently published life of General Hamilton by his son, John C. Hamilton, rendered a biographical notice unnecessary. We think he erred: there are among us but few such character-writers as the historian of the Church in America, and an extended introduction to the work, from his pen, would have added much to its value.
The Book of the Poets: The Poets of the Nineteenth Century. London, Scott, Webster, & Co. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart.
This is a splendid octavo volume, in the style of S. C. Hall’s “Book of Gems,” published in London, in 1838, but is larger and more profusely illustrated. It contains an elaborate and well written essay on the English poetry of the present age, and selections from the works of the following authors, with brief biographical and critical notices. William Gifford, Joanna Baillie, Hannah Moore, Robert Bloomfield, George Crabbe, William Sotheby, Samuel Rogers, William Lisle Bowles, William Wordsworth, James Montgomery, Charles Dibdin, Thomas Haynes Bayley, Sir Walter Scott, S. T. Coleridge, Mary Tighe, James Hogg, Walter Savage Landor, Robert Southey, Charles Lamb, Thomas Campbell, Ebenezer Elliott, Reginald Heber, Thomas Moore, Leigh Hunt, Henry Kirke White, Lord Byron, Barry Cornwall, Professor Wilson, Henry Hart Milman, Charles Wolfe, Allan Cunningham, P. B. Shelley, John Clare, Mrs. Hemans, John Keats, George Croly, Robert Pollok, Mary Russel Mitford, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, James Sheridan Knowles, Mrs. Norton, and others. We have not had leisure to examine the selections generally, but presume they are judiciously made. Doubtless the work will be in great demand during the holiday season.
The Life of Peter Van Schaack, LL. D. Embracing selections from his Correspondence, and other writings during the American Revolution, and his Exile in England. By his son, Henry C. Van Schaack. One vol. 8vo. pp. 500. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart.
This is a novel and interesting contribution to our historical literature, Mr. Van Schaack was an eminent young lawyer in the city of New York during the period immediately preceding the Revolution, and was on terms of intimacy with John Jay, Richard Harrison, Gouverneur Morris, and other master-spirits of that time. He was opposed to the declaration of independence in the colonies, and to the resort to arms in its defence, and for his opinions was banished to England. While abroad he was placed in situations to see and to learn much in regard to the movements of both parties, and his strictures on the policy of the British, notices of public characters, etc., throw additional light upon the most important era in our history. He was a pious and well educated man, with strong powers of observation, classical taste and much skill in the use of language; and his son has done the country an acceptable service by publishing his memoirs and writings. A fine portrait by Gimbrede, from a painting by Colonel Trumbull, adds to the beauty and value of the volume.
An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, by Bishop Burnet. With an Appendix, containing the Augsburg Confession, Creed of Pope Pius IV., &c. Revised and Corrected, with copious Notes and additional References, by the Rev. James R. Paige, A.M., of Queen’s College, Cambridge. One volume, 8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
The valuable notes from the most distinguished theological writers of the sixteenth century, biographical sketches of celebrated divines and controvertists, indices, etc. which the learned editor has added to the great work of Bishop Burnet, must cause this edition to supersede every other as a manual for students. It is printed in Messrs. Appleton and Company’s usual style of elegance and correctness.
The Writings of Rev. William Bradford Homer, with a Memoir, by Edwards A. Park. One vol. 12mo. Pp. 420. Boston: Tappan & Dennet. Philadelphia: H. Perkins.
From the interesting memoir by Professor Park we learn that Mr. Homer was a native of Boston; that he was educated at Amherst College and the Theological School at Andover; and that he died in 1841, at South Berwick, in Maine, where he was settled as minister over a Congregational Church. His literary remains consist of addresses, religious discourses, and notes on the classics, all of which are distinguished for elegance of taste and correct and appropriate thought. It is hardly necessary so to speak of a volume from the Boston press, as well printed.
History of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Compiled chiefly from the published and unpublished documents of the Board. By Joseph Tracy. Second edition, carefully revised and enlarged. One vol. 8vo. New York: M. W. Dodd, 1842.
The American Missionary Society has doubtless done more for the promotion of religion and civilization than any other association in the world. Its progress, condition, and prospects must, therefore, be deeply interesting to the better classes of men in every country. The work before as is written with great care and ability, and brings the history of the society’s operations down to the commencement of the present year. It is compactly printed and illustrated by several engravings.
The Poetical Remains of the late Lucy Hooper, with a Memoir, by John Keese. One vol. 12mo. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart. New York, Samuel Colman.
Lucy Hooper died last year in the city of Brooklyn, near New York, at the early age of twenty-four years. She had previously become widely known by her contributions, in prose and verse, to the periodicals, distinguished alike for their elegant diction, purity of thought, and womanly feeling. The Memoir, by Mr. Keese, is an admirable specimen of character-writing, and the work altogether is one of the most interesting of its kind published in this country. We regret our inability to give a more extended notice of it in this number of our magazine.
EDITOR’S TABLE.
To Readers And Correspondents.—It affords us great pleasure to state that the publisher of this magazine has entered into engagements with James Fenimore Cooper, the most popular of our country’s authors, by which we shall be enabled to present in every number, after that for September, an article from his pen. Mr. Cooper has never before been connected with any periodical. His works are so familiar to every reader in the old or the new world, that it is unnecessary to speak at length of the increase in interest and value our magazine will derive from his contributions.
Of Professor Longfellow’s poems several have already appeared in this magazine. He has recently completed a drama, in three acts, entitled “The Spanish Student,” the MS. of which is in our possession. It is the most elaborate, and will unquestionably prove to be the most popular of his poetical works. It will appear, entirely or in part, in our next number. Professor Longfellow is now abroad, in quest of health. From an exquisite poem addressed to him on the day of his departure, by his friend George S. Hillard, we quote the following stanza, joining heartily in the invocation—
Ye gales that breathe, ye founts that gush,
With renovating power,
Upon that loved and laurelled head,
Your gifts of healing shower:
And jocund Health that loves to climb
The breezy mountain side;
Wake with your touch, to bounding life,
His pulse’s languid tide!
The name of William Cullen Bryant—dear to the lovers of elegant literature wherever the English tongue is spoken—appears now, for the first time, on our pages. We have elsewhere given some opinions on his character as a poet, in which we doubt not every reader will concur.
“Henri Quatre, or the Days of the League” was republished in this country immediately after its appearance in London, and universally pronounced one of the best romances in the language. It has since passed through several editions, and is now incorporated with the standard works of fiction. The author, it will be perceived, has become a writer for this magazine, and the admirable story entitled “De Pontis,” of which the first part is given in the preceding pages, will sustain his high reputation.
Charles Fenno Hoffman, the accomplished author of “A Winter in the West,” “Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie,” “Greyslaer,” “The Vigil of Faith,” etc., has also become a regular contributor, and our next number will contain a tale in his best manner.
Theodore S. Fay, author of “Norman Leslie,” “Reveries of a Quiet Man,” “The Countess Ida,” etc., and now United States Secretary of Legation at Berlin, will continue to write for our pages.
Henry T. Tuckerman, author of “Isabelle, or Sicily,” “The Italian Sketch Book,” “Rambles and Reveries,” etc., has likewise been engaged, and an article from his pen will appear in September.
Alfred B. Street, one of the best descriptive poets now living, has forwarded to us a beautiful poem which will also be published in the number for the next month.
One more part will complete Mr. Herbert’s spirited tale, “The Sisters.” We have received another article by this popular writer, which will soon be laid before our readers.
Niagara Falls.—This number of our magazine appears in the midst of “the hot season,” while the warmest aspirations of its readers are for “the cool retreats, the woodlands, and the waves.” In August no place is more attractive than Niagara—as our friend Schoolcraft, who understands better than any one else the Indian tongues, says the name should be pronounced—and the following letter from the Cataract House will therefore be read with interest, especially by those who intend to visit the scenes it so admirably describes.
CATARACT HOUSE, Niagara Falls, July, 1842.
Friend Griswold:—Years, though not many, have weighed upon me since first, in boyhood, I gazed from the deck of a canal-boat upon the distant cloud of white vapor which marked the position of the world’s great cataract, and listened to catch the rumbling of its deep thunders. Circumstances did not then permit me to gratify my strong desire of visiting it; and now, when I am tempted to wonder at the stolidity of those who live within a day’s journey, yet live on through half a century without one glance at the mighty torrent, I am checked by the reflection that I myself passed within a dozen miles of it no less than five times before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The propitious hour came at last, however; and, after a disappointed gaze from the upper terrace on the British side, (in which I half feared that the sheet of broken and boiling water above was all the cataract that existed,) and a rapid tortuous descent by the woody declivity, I stood at length on Table Rock, and the whole immensity of the tremendous avalanche of waters burst at once on my arrested vision, while Awe struggled with Amazement for the mastery of my soul.
This was late in October; I have twice revisited the scene amid the freshness and beauty of June; but I think the later Autumn is by far the better season. There is then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive melancholy in the sighing of the wind through the mottled forest foliage, which harmonizes better with the spirit of the scene. For the Genius of Niagára, O friend! is never a laughter-loving spirit. For the gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light follies of the hour, he has small sympathy. Let not the giddy heir bring here his ingots, the selfish aspirant his ambition, the libertine his victim, and hope to find enjoyment and gaiety in the presence. Let none come here to nurse his pride, or avarice, or any low desire. God and His handiwork here stand forth in lone sublimity; and all the petty doings and darings of the ants at the base of the pyramid appear in their proper insignificance. Few can have visited Niagára and left it no humbler, no graver than they came.
The common fault of visiters here, as of sight-seers elsewhere, is that of haste. Two hours are devoted to a scene which requires days, if not weeks, for its proper appreciation. Niagára, like St. Peter’s at Rome, enlarges on the vision; the mind must have time to expand ere it can grasp all its giant proportions. The first view always deludes and disappoints the gazer with regard to the height of the perpendicular fall; the vast scale on which Nature has fashioned her wonder-work deceives; the depth, and breadth, and volume, detract from the altitude; and I doubt if the larger number of new comers would not estimate the height at less than one half the one hundred and sixty feet which the line gives from surface above to surface below. Observation, however, soon corrects the error; if not, a walk down the interminable stairway, and a gaze upward at the ocean which seems to be poured from a window of heaven, will do it at once.
The giant masonry of Nature, which has so long interposed a barrier against the draining of Lake Erie into Ontario at a rush, and the consequent overwhelming of all the dwellers upon the latter and the St. Lawrence by a deluge, is evidently wearing away; I can perceive a decided change since I first stood here, seven years ago. The main or British fall is receding near the middle, and thus exchanging its original (or recent) form of a horseshoe for that of an irregular wedge. By this process the beauty and grandeur of the cataract are sensibly diminished. I understand that the recession here, under the pressure of so vast a body of water, has been so rapid as essentially to diminish the amount of water flowing on the American side of Goat Island, even within twenty years. Five hundred will probably suffice to dry this channel altogether; five thousand may or may not suffice to bring on the great convulsion which will destroy the falls entirely, change Lake Erie into a sandy valley divided by a rapid river, leave one half the Erie Canal without water, and change the whole face of Nature from Detroit to the Ocean, And why from Detroit only? It may be that a barrier of rock equally firm prevents the immediate occurrence of a similar convulsion at the mouths of the Huron and Michigan, and thus the cataract will but be transferred to a point much nearer the Superior; yet I should deem it quite as likely that the final submersion of Niagara, if instantaneous, as it very probably will be, when the rocky barrier has been sapped and broken down so nearly through as no longer to afford adequate resistance to the intense pressure of Lake Erie, will be the signal for a convulsion so mighty as to change the whole topography of Central North America.
Since I wrote the foregoing, I have slept to the music of the great cataract, my window looking out on the foaming and hurrying waters of the American current, just before it is precipitated over the ledge. It has rained through a good part of the night, though the roar of the waters drowned completely the noise of the storm, and the morning is wet and forbidding, while a heavy fog or cloud detracts much from the grandeur of the scene. My morning walk along the American shore has been less satisfactory than any previous observation, the water suspended in vapor somewhat shrouding the spectacle, while that falling or fallen detracts likewise from the comfort of all but web-footed travellers. No matter—I did not meditate any precise description of the Fall, and shall not attempt it. The readers of your Magazine, I presume, are mainly of the class who have either been here or intend to see for themselves at a fitting season. And beside, description avails very little in such a case. It is only by its comparisons and assimilations of the unknown with the known that description enlightens—and what has the world to compare with Niagara?
A few hints to visiters must close this hasty epistle. They tell you, good friends, that the best view of the Cataract is that from the Canada side; and so it is; but it is far from being the only good or even necessary view. The details are essential to the completeness and fulness of your impression, and those are only gleaned from hours of intent observation from all positions. The very best view is probably that from Table Rock; the next best perhaps that from under the same, on the point just before passing behind the grand curtain, when having descended the winding stairway and scrambled over some rods of shale between the beetling cliff and the whirling basin, forcing your way through an eternal tempest of wind and rain such as upper earth endures but once in many years, you stand at length directly face to face with the mighty torrent, and put your hands, if you please, into the edge of its very self. You look up, and the columnar sea seems pouring from the very sky overhead; you now learn to appreciate more justly the vast height of the Fall; as you gaze, the impending water seems to advance upon, and the next moment likely to dash over and whelm you.
But these are not alone as points of deepest interest; and I think some of the many views from Goat Island scarcely inferior in impressiveness, while superior in softness and beauty. The noble forest, the velvet turf, the glowing sun-beams, the unconstrained stillness of all things save the Great Cataract itself, fitly blend with and modify the first sensations of unapproachable grandeur and power. The stern severity, the austere majesty of the scene is softened down; and we return to our primal knowledge of Nature under no stepmother aspect, but as a sympathizing confidant and friend. I must break off.
Yours,
H. G.
John Fitch.—Our readers will be pleased to learn that Miss Leslie is preparing for the press a Memoir of this remarkable man, to whom the world is really indebted for the most important of modern discoveries. While Fitch was in London Miss Leslie’s father was one of his warmest friends, and the papers of her family enable her to give many particulars of his history unknown to other biographers. A year or two since, we wrote a brief account of the eccentric and unfortunate inventor, which led to an interesting correspondence with several eminent persons who had been acquainted with him. Among the letters which we received was the following, from the venerable Noah Webster, LL. D., of New Haven.
Dear Sir:—In your notice of John Fitch you justly remark that his biography is still a desideratum. The facts related of him by Mr. St. John to Mr. Stone, and published in the New York Commercial Advertiser, are new to me; and never before had I heard of Mr. Fitch at Sharon, in Connecticut; but I know Mr. St. John very well, and cannot discredit his testimony any more than I can Mr. Stone’s memory. The substance of the account given of Mr. Fitch by the indefatigable J. W. Barber, in his Connecticut Historical Collections, is as follows: John Fitch was born in East Windsor, in Connecticut, and apprenticed to Mr. Cheney, a watch and clock-maker of East Hartford, now Manchester, a new town separated from East Hartford. He married, but did not live happily with his wife, and he left her and went to New Brunswick, in New Jersey, where he set up the business of clock-making, engraving, and repairing muskets, before the revolution. When New Jersey was invaded by the British troops, Mr. Fitch removed into the interior of Pennsylvania, where he employed his time in repairing arms for the army.
Mr. Fitch conceived the project of steam navigation in 1785, as appears by his advertisement. He built his boat in 1787. In my Diary I have noted that I visited the boat, lying at the wharf in the Delaware, on the ninth day of February, 1787. The Governor and Council were so much gratified with the success of the boat that they presented Mr. Fitch with a superb flag. About that time the company aiding Mr. Fitch sent him to France, at the request of Mr. Vail, our Consul at L’Orient, who was one of the company. But this was when France began to be agitated by the revolution, and nothing in favor of Mr. Fitch was accomplished; he therefore returned. Mr. Vail afterwards presented to Mr. Fulton for examination the papers of Mr. Fitch, containing his scheme of steam navigation. After Mr. Fitch returned to this country, he addressed a letter to Mr. Rittenhouse, in which he predicted that in time the Atlantic would be crossed by steam power; he complained of his poverty, and urged Mr. Rittenhouse to buy his land in Kentucky, for raising funds to complete his scheme. But he obtained no efficient aid. Disappointed in his efforts to obtain funds, he resorted to indulgence in drink; he retired to Pittsburgh, and finally ended his life by plunging into the Alleghany. His books and papers he bequeathed to the Philadelphia Library, with the injunction that they were to remain closed for thirty years. At the end of that period, the papers were opened, and found to contain a minute account of his perplexities and disappointments. Thus far the narration of Mr. Barber, who refers for authority to the American edition of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. It may be worth while for some gentleman to attempt to find these papers.
N. WEBSTER.
Rufus W. Griswold.
The papers to which Dr. Webster alludes in the above letter have been examined by Miss Leslie, and the curious details they contain of Fitch’s early life, his courtship, unfortunate marriage, captivity among the Indians, experiments, etc. will be embraced in her work, which will undoubtedly be one of the most interesting biographies in our language.
William L. Stone, author of “The Life of Brant,” “Life and Eloquence of Red Jacket,” “History of Wyoming,” etc., is now engaged on another important historical work to be called “The Life and Times of Sir William Johnson.” It will embrace accounts of the French wars in America from 1743 to 1849, and from 1754 to 1761, which resulted in the conquest of Canada. With this interesting period no writer is more familiar than Mr. Stone, and he will unquestionably produce a volume of great value.
Segur’s Life of Charles VIII.—Among the new works soon to appear is the Memoir of Charles VIII., King of France, by Count Philip De Segur, author of the “History of Napoleon’s Campaigns in Russia,” etc., translated by Richard R. Montgomery, of this city. It is one of the most interesting books ever written. In its style it resembles the Chronicles of Philip de Comines.
Mr. Stevens, the Traveller.—Mr. Stevens, with Mr. Catherwood who accompanied him as draughtsman, has returned a second time from Central America, and is now busily engaged on a new work in regard to the curious antiquities of that country. It will be published by the Harpers, during the autumn.
William Gilmore Simms.—Mr. Simms has become editor of “The Magnolia,” a monthly literary magazine, recently established at Charleston. No man in the South is so well qualified for the office. We give him joyfully the right hand of fellowship.
Mr. Cooper.—“La Few Follet, or Wing-and-Wing, a Nautical Tale,” by the author of the “Spy,” will appear in a few weeks. The scene of the story is the Mediterranean, in 1799. It will be published simultaneously in Philadelphia and London.
John Augustus Shea.—This gentleman has in press a collection of his poetical writings, of which we shall take due notice on its appearance.
Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note.
[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 2, August 1842, George R. Graham, Editor]